Practical Practitioner

By: Pamela Egan, FNP-C CDE

Autism Linked to Mother’s Illnesses

A Kaiser Permanente study, published in Archives of Pediatrics and adolescent Medicine in February, looked at the maternal history of 420 children with autism born between 1995 and 1999. The study found that pregnant women with asthma, allergies or psoriasis had a higher risk of having an autistic child.

The risk of having an autistic child was doubled if the mother had a disease flare-up during the second trimester. Researchers theorize that the flare may have caused the mother’s immune system to produce cytokines, which are associated with inflammation and could have damaged fetal brain development.

UPDATE

Some of the new literature on vitamin D3 suggests that it may be that a maternal vitamin D3 deficiency may be a contributing factor associated with autism. Vitamin D has been shown to provide a boost to the immune system, and the belief is that a lack of vitamin D coupled with a genetic predisposition may activate an immune reaction in the brain, which may trigger the effects on brain development commonly associated with autism.

In this sense, an increasing number of doctors, nutritionists and scientists familiar with the topic believe that high-quality vitamin d supplement taken daily by mothers during pregnancy may help reduce the rates of Autism in future generations.

I highly recommend that anyone supplementing with vitamin D make absolutely sure you’re getting high-quality vitamin D3 supplements and not those containing D2. For more on the reasons why D3 (cholecalciferol) is superior to D2 (ergocalciferol), please see the following article: Vitamin D3 – The Sunshine Vitamin.

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