Breastfeeding is nutritionally better for babies, it has been proven but breastfeeding is not always possible. There is nothing wrong with formula per se, but it cannot be the same as breastmilk. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusively breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life and continued breastfeeding with the introduction of complementary foods. I fed all my babies formula. This blog is not to start this debate. Just getting this out of the way.

A study by Cara Westmark of the University of Madison in Wisconsin wanted to see if breastmilk consumption would prevent autism in babies who have tested positive for fragile x syndrome. In this study, she evaluates associations between the consumption fo breast milk in infancy and the prevalence of autism, diabetes, gastrointestinal issues and seizures in FXS.

This study was a survey given to families who were enrolled in the Fragile X Online Registry and Accessible Research Database (FORWARD). A survey or questionnaire cannot be scientific as it is biased and no checks can be done to check parents responses. They did not offer evaluations for the different conditions that were claimed that breastmilk would prevent.

Claims the Impossible

She claims that there was a 1.7 fold reduction rate of autism in FXS participants who were breastfed for 12 months or longer.

This does not make any sense scientifically.

A study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed brain tissue in deceased autistic children. The researchers were from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington. They examined 25 genes in postmortem brain tissue of autistic children and neurotypical children. These genes included biomarkers for brain cells in different layers of the cortex, genes that have been linked to autism and several control genes.