Well I buck the trend.  I have two boys on the autism spectrum, the first born 3 years after his sister and the second 5 years after the next sister, so definitely not close together causing it here.  That said, years ago I read (and promptly lost) an article that showed that breastfeeding tended to decrease the severity of autism.  So they interviewed a lot of parents of autistic kids and found that the average severity of breastfed kids was lower than the average severity of formula fed kids, and that hold true in my house where both are high functioning autisim.

Jenny
Jenny Doncon

Breastfeeding Counsellor, IBCLC, Australia

 

(read my expressing story here: http://www.lrc.asn.au/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41257 and my weaning diary here http://www.lrc.asn.au/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40015)

On 12/07/2011, at 11:37 PM, Maria Parlapiano RN, IBCLC wrote:

> This article which ( starts out with an annoying first sentence)  attempts to connect the relationship of close child spacing (due to not breastfeeding) to a higher risk of autism.  
> 
> 'Gallup didn't do his own research but based his theory on data from a January study in the journal Pediatrics. That study analyzed more than 650,000 families to show that second-born children conceived within a year or less of the first child were three times more likely to have autism than second-borns conceived several years later. Gallup believes bottle-feeding may have been to blame.'
> 
> http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/11/could-bottle-feeding-put-your-next-child-at-risk-for-autism/#ixzz1RuBOK3tF
> 
> Well, around here in "IVF land"  moms are purposely having their babies close together -in order  to use those frozen eggs because they are "running out of time"  Should I assume that the fertility clinics are promoting this as well?   Many of these moms wean well before a year so they can "get on with it"    Maybe an article like this will curtail a few from doing so.
> 
> Maria (hoping for the best in NJ))
> 
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