On Monday, after carrying out an extensive research, scientists revealed that being an older mother manages to hike the risk of having a child with autism quite significantly, but being an older father, on the other hand, only increases the risk if the mother is below the age of 30.

Researchers discovered that a woman who is 40 years of age faces a 50% higher risk of having a child who would be diagnosed with autism, as compared to a woman who is between the ages of 25 to 29.

But being an older father, however, i. e., when a man is 40 or above, only manages to offer a significant contribution to having an autistic child when the mother is under the age of 30.

"The older the mother, the more the risk that the child will develop autism, regardless of whether the father is young or old. There has been a debate over whether it is maternal or paternal risk. A lot of people were thinking it's not really mom's age", said researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto of the University of California Davis MIND Institute.

The results of the latest study have come as a contradiction to the 2006 Israeli born children's study which stressed that parental age had a much larger role to play.

Details of the study have been published in the journal Autism Research.