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My pet theory on autism is the Back to Sleep campaign that began in the 90s. (1) Babies don’t like back sleeping. It disrupts their sleep. Sleep is important in

My pet theory on autism is the Back to Sleep campaign that began in the 90s. (1) Babies don’t like back sleeping. It disrupts their sleep. Sleep is important in brain development. Constantly disrupted sleep means a higher percentage of brain development issues. I can back up my pet theory with studies. Bottom line is, stomach sleeping with good air circulation (2) reduces SIDS at similar rates to back sleeping without the side effect of autism. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4978628/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4978628/ 2: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/380273 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

iwasbornin2021 5y ago
The Chinese traditionally make babies sleep on their backs. You should check out their historical autism rate
- dempsey 5y ago
  Care to cite a study or data? I know sleep researches studying this issue at UCLA and elsewhere and would love to share it with them. We were looking for natural experiments. Ideally somewhere that babies are still stomach slept. Much like Israel and peanut snacks in the study of peanut allergies, it’s hard to change a protective paradigm without a natural experiment. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/eating-peanuts-prevents-allergy https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/eating-peanuts-preve...
  - iwasbornin2021 5y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=china+babies+sleep+on+their+back&oq=china+babies+sleep+on+their+back&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i22i29i30.13449j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=china+babies+sleep+on+their+... https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/06/30/chinese-swaddled-not-coddled/9e7ed946-842b-4013-9b49-24ef805442ab/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/06/30/c... The WaPo article is very illuminating re: how Chinese babies were raised. As it was published almost 30 years ago, those babies are now established Chinese adults. Makes you wonder how much they're shaped by how they were reared.
    - dempsey 5y ago
      I’m referring to data on autism rates in China. The WaPo article makes it seem highly likely that kids have developmental issues. The question really is whether autism is measured in China in any reliable way.

iwasbornin2021 5y ago

The Chinese traditionally make babies sleep on their backs. You should check out their historical autism rate

dempsey 5y ago
Care to cite a study or data? I know sleep researches studying this issue at UCLA and elsewhere and would love to share it with them. We were looking for natural experiments. Ideally somewhere that babies are still stomach slept. Much like Israel and peanut snacks in the study of peanut allergies, it’s hard to change a protective paradigm without a natural experiment. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/eating-peanuts-prevents-allergy https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/eating-peanuts-preve...
- iwasbornin2021 5y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=china+babies+sleep+on+their+back&oq=china+babies+sleep+on+their+back&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i22i29i30.13449j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=china+babies+sleep+on+their+... https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/06/30/chinese-swaddled-not-coddled/9e7ed946-842b-4013-9b49-24ef805442ab/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/06/30/c... The WaPo article is very illuminating re: how Chinese babies were raised. As it was published almost 30 years ago, those babies are now established Chinese adults. Makes you wonder how much they're shaped by how they were reared.
  - dempsey 5y ago
    I’m referring to data on autism rates in China. The WaPo article makes it seem highly likely that kids have developmental issues. The question really is whether autism is measured in China in any reliable way.