Folic Acid and Autism Risk in Pregnancy

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.