Folic Acid in Pregnancy and Autism Risk: Study Findings

No one takes more folic acid than pregnant women. They're told it's essential.

They're told it prevents birth defects. Some doctors prescribe four to five thousand micrograms of it daily. These women are doing exactly what they've been told to do, and that's the tragedy. Two landmark studies found something deeply troubling. Researchers at John Hopkins measured folate levels in mothers shortly after delivery.

Mothers with extremely high folate levels, more than four times what's considered adequate, had double the risk of having a child with autism.

When very high folate was combined with very high vitamin B12, the risk jumped to seventeen point six times higher.

But the more revealing study measured cord blood, the blood that passes directly from the mother to baby through the placenta.

Babies with the highest unmetabolized folic acid levels had more than double the autism risk. In African American children, nearly ten-fold. Here's the critical finding: the increased risk was specific to unmetabolized folic acid, not total folate, not methylfolate, just a synthetic form the body cannot

process. The researchers stated it very clearly, "Higher concentrations of cord unmetabolized folic acid, but not methylfolate or total folate, were associated with increased risk autism spectrum disorder." The problem isn't folate. Folate is essential for fetal development.

The problem is the form. Throughout pregnancy, unmetabolized folic acid from supplements and fortified food crosses placenta and accumulates in the developing baby.

It binds the folate receptors in the forming brain, blocking the active folate those neurons desperately need during the most critical time of development. Over ninety percent of newborns have detectable unmetabolized folic acid in their cord blood before they take their first breath.