Vitamin D Deficiency Causes Autism

my twin nephews

When my twin nephews were born prematurely, they were not only tiny and wrinkly, but were yellow like pale squashes. Since born premature, it was understandable that they would  yellow, even normal delivered infants are  tinged with yellow because of bilirubin-a yellowish pigment found in bile, produced by the liver.

Normally, infant has little ability to break the bilirubin in  his/her body. As a result, an infant is  born yellow , to help newly born infant break bilirubin, he/she should be exposed to sunlight, which was being done to my nephews.  Because of the fragility of their health, the doctor had to  confine  the boys in the hospital for two weeks. Series of injections and phototherapy were a daily happenings. Phototherapy is  just a direct exposure to sunlight for 5-10 minutes. After  the therapy, the twins were further exposed to heat in a incubator like box with just a fluorescent lamp  to keep  their body warm to further stimulate their livers to become stronger.

Typically, by 1-3 days old an infant is capable of breaking his own bilirubin, however there are some cases where some infants have a hard time breaking it , it is manifested by a jaundice color of their skin. An infant  liver does not have the full capacity to break the yellowish substances found in Red Blood Cells (RBC) which he/she is born with. Upon birth an infant is born with an excess of RBC from the mother, who were the one breaking the bilirubin for them through her liver. If it isn’t monitored and left untreated infants will suffer anemia, neonatal jaundice, chronic liver disease and some studies suggest  could be a factor in causing Spectrum Autism among children.

Being Special Education teacher, a child with autism is one of the disorders that I have a hard time teaching even the most basic things like communicating with them for they have their "own" world. One of the researches I had while studying Special Education was the Vitamin D. The studies suggest that the lack of Vitamin D  is one of the causes  of Autism specially among children of colored skin (the black people). When an exodus of Africans started migrating voluntarily or  forcibly who migrated to the western countries like Denmark, U.S. and etc. had triggered a disorder in their genes like Autism.  What the study showed are high percentage cases of  black people with autism  especially those who were born during winter. However, genes anomaly  plays a  big factor being with Autism. Based on the Cornell University study said that the ” "research is sufficiently suggestive of an environmental trigger for autism associated with precipitation, of which vitamin D deficiency is one possibility," says study co-author Michael Waldman, a professor of management and economics at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management.  Furthering the theory of the possibility that deficiency of Vit D could be the culprit of Autism.

We may not think too much of Vit D however, it is one of the important vitamin for the development of the brain. When blood has high presence of bilirubin it could affect our brain in the way that is debilitating especially to infants who are still physcially developing.

As for the twins, thank God, they don’t have neonatal complications. In fact, they are the most active children we I’ve seen, however, if the doctors have been negligent it could have devastating effects to them- health and neurological wise. It is important that baby screening are done to make sure that your baby doesn’t have any telltale signs of a disorder or disability. If there’s any immediate therapies and interventions are to be undertaken.