Two humble supplements every mom-to-be needs to take

If you or someone you love is expecting, I’m sure that you can’t wait to count those 10 tiny fingers and 10 adorable toes!

Having that precious baby come out perfect is what every mom-to-be and her family want to see.

But so many things can — and do — go wrong in the process.

And one of the most alarming? The numbers of kids being diagnosed with autism keeps going up and up — now said to be 1 in 68 versus just a few decades ago when it was 1 in 2,000.

Despite that, health officials won’t take a firm stand and admit that anything much more than a genetic fluke could be responsible for this heartbreak.

Of course, we know it’s more than that. But whether it’s vaccines (both ones given to moms and their babies)… pesticides… drugs… or the tons of chemicals found in our air, food, and water… science hasn’t offered up any undeniable “proof.”

But some new research has uncovered a step that you can take to help protect a child from this developmental disability.

And the best part about these new findings is that they couldn’t be any simpler to put into action!

A supplement in time
Vitamins are a lot like the Rodney Dangerfield of the nutrition world. They just don’t get any respect!

But a just-out study should help give them back the recognition they deserve. And this news is especially important for anyone who’s currently expecting or planning to have a baby in the future.

An international team of researchers — led by Dr. Stephen Levine from Israel’s University of Haifa — found that women who took folic acid (folate) and a multivitamin before becoming pregnant were able to slash the risk of their child being diagnosed with autism by over 60 percent.

Even better, those who took those two supplements during pregnancy were able to lower that risk by a whopping 73 percent!

Now, it’s no secret that folate is well known to be able to prevent certain kinds of birth defects, but this study found that it can do so much more.

This new research just published in JAMA Psychiatry, wasn’t limited to just a few dozen moms and babies, either. The team followed over 45,000 children born in Israel between 2003 and 2007 and monitored them until 2015.

Tom Frazier, the head scientist for the group Autism Speaks, said that the findings are not “a trivial recommendation,” but results that “people should really pay attention to.”

But this isn’t the first time that a study has found vitamins taken during pregnancy can lower a child’s autism risk.

Last October, researchers from Sweden analyzed over 270,000 moms and babies and found that taking multivitamins during early pregnancy lowered the likelihood of an autism diagnosis.

And last summer, a study out of the Netherlands found that the autism rate actually doubled in children born to moms deficient in vitamin D.

Of course, when it comes to the value of taking vitamin supplements, the naysayers will always try to throw cold water on it by claiming that they’re a waste of money.

Don’t listen to them — and don’t allow such mainstream medical myths to get in the way of keeping babies as healthy as possible.

While you can steer clear of certain drugs and chemicals that are linked to autism, you and I both know that it’s simply impossible to avoid all of them. Fortunately, we now also know that two humble supplements may be able to counteract the effects of many of these toxins.

If there’s a mom-to-be in your life, please share this eAlert with her so she’ll know about something very safe and simple that can be done to help ensure that her bundle of joy is just as perfect as God intended.

“Prenatal vitamins tied to lower autism risk in kids, study finds” Dennis Thompson, January 3, 2018, HealthDay, consumer.healthday.com