Said kathy:

>1.  My nephew, whom I posted about, had a prenatal stroke, so the cause of
his seizures was preexisting.  He breastfed for about 2.5 years -- WAY
beyond what my sister-in-law thought was normal and appropriate, because he
didn't like to eat anything else.

My thought: kid knows what's good for his brain.

>2.  The son of my best friend Martha, whom I have also posted about (not
Martha from Ohio -- my three best friends are named Martha!).  Her son is
autistic, breastfed for at least four years, has developed seizure disorder
in the last two years.  Medication seems to work for him, so no reason to
starve him of carbohydrates.

There is in England a group called Allergy-Induced Autism (AIA) which was,
as I remember, working with some very good neuroscientists and medical
researchers re a particular sub-group of autistic kids: breastfed,
developed autism late, properly diagnosed, good prognosis in many more
cases than usual. I knew of them years ago and lost contact. ANy UK
Lactnetters track this down for us?

There is also a sub-group of autistic kids wehose symptoms are triggered by
biochemical distrurbances related to diet and who are "cured" when
avoiding.

What proportion these groups are of the whole autistic range who knows.
Personally I'm convinced autism has a neuro-immuno-endocrinological basis
to which diet is a crucial contributor and it seems not surprising to me
that it was first described and widely recognised (and also that "cold
mothers" were blamed) in the land of the free (formula) and the home of the
baby bottle, the US of A. Of course there will be autistic breastfed kids
too, just as somewhere there are breastfed babies who have every problem
bottlefed babies do. It's just that there are a lot less when kids are
exclusively breastfed, symptoms emerge later, disease is not so severe and
prognosis better...


maureen

Maureen Minchin, IBCLC
5 St, George's Rd., Armadale Vic 3143 Australia
tel/fax after March 1: 61.3.95094929 or 95000648