Pregnancy in autistic women and social medical considerations. Scoping review and meta-synthesis

Introduction: This article addresses a topic that has been largely overlooked byscientific literature, namely pregnancy in autistic women. Generally, the issue ofsexuality in disability, particularly in disabled women, autistic or otherwise, hasbeen underexplored. However, it is necessary to scientifically investigate this topicto propose adequate social and health policies. Therefore, we chose to conduct ascoping review to answer three main questions: “What does it mean for an autisticwoman to be  pregnant?”; “How do these two conditions coexist?”; “Are healthservices prepared to receive this population adequately or does autism become astigma for pregnant women?”Methods: We conducted a systematic review and qualitative thematic synthesisfollowing the Preferred Reporting Guidelines for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses on autistic women and pregnancy in the last 10 years.Results: The studies included in our review are 7, extremely diverse in termsof methodologies and sample sizes. Despite the heterogeneity of samples andmethodologies, all research tends to highlight the following results. For autisticwomen during pregnancy, three areas seem to be  the most difficult: sensoryissues, mood disorders, and relationships with specialists.Discussion: Our study found that women with ASD face unique challenges duringchildbirth that differ from those of neurotypical women. Participants often feltbelittled, ignored, and uninformed about the care they received, and being placedat the centre of attention was often seen as negative and hindering rather thanpositive. However, the research shows us how some “expected” results, such asdifficulties in breastfeeding, have been disproven.