Study conducted to determine connection between breast feeding and autism
Posted on: 16/Sep/2015 12:37:59 PM
According to a recent study, mother`s milk may reduce autism in babies that already have a genetic predisposition to the disorder. The study was conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig in Germany, in association with scientists from the Singapore National University and the University of Virginia. The paper was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers studied the relationship between genes, the ability to perceive emotions and breast feeding. The participants of the study were 98 infants that were seven months old. Half of the group had two copies of a risk variant of the gene called CD38. The effect of breast feeding on the babies emotional perception was then noted.
The ability to recognise other people emotions is a social skill that autistic persons tend not to have. Experts can obtain such information from the area around the eyes of the other person. Those with autism spectrum disorders have diminished attention to the other person’s eyes.
The results of the study showed that those babies that were breast fed for a longer time spent more time looking at images of happy eyes. They were also disturbed by angry eyes, thus concluding that the process of breast feeding enhances that emotional sensitivity in babies. However, researchers also said that there was little or no evidence that breast feeding changes the odds of the child`s developing autism or any other such disorder.
