Elective caesarean delivery is linked with an elevated risk of learning disabilities, including autism and dyslexia.

The study included 407,503 school-aged children in Scotland. Overall, 4.9% of these youngsters required special needs education (SEN). Babies born at 40 weeks had a 4% risk of learning disabilities. In contrast, those delivered “early term” between 37 to 39 weeks — a large portion of which are Caesarean deliveries — had a 5.1% risk of learning disorders.

Although the risk of SEN was much higher in preterm than in early term babies, because many more children were born between 37 and 39 weeks (about a third of babies) than before 37 weeks (1 in 20 babies), early term births accounted for 5.5% of cases of SEN whereas preterm deliveries accounted for only 3.6% of cases. And, results show that even a baby born at 39 weeks has an increased risk of SEN compared with a baby born a week later.

“Our findings have important implications for clinical practice in relation to the timing of elective delivery,” say the authors.

PLoS – June 8, 2010 ;Epub.
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