I’ll try to explain what I can understand and how it affected our family. I’m not a medical professional, so PLEASE check with a professional.
Kids who take lots of antibiotics early in life, not only develop an immunity to them, but it kills off the “good” bacteria in their body. When I went back and checked Sammy’s medical records, I discovered that his first dose of antibiotics came when he was less than a month old. Over the next two years, he had nine rounds of heavy duty antibiotics. His birth mom was a very heavy smoker, and he had numerous respiratory infections.
When the good bacteria gets killed off, yeast grows in the stomach. Yeast on it’s own is not a problem. You can have a packet of yeast sitting in your pantry for years, and it will never do anything, even becoming inactive after a certain amount of time. Now, add wheat, sugar and water to the yeast, and what do you get? Our kids have the same issues building inside their stomachs because they don’t have the good bacteria to break it down.
Imagine what happens when you set bread dough out to rise. The air and gas that builds up in there, is building up in our kids bodies instead. The yeast needs to continue to grow, so the kids literally crave wheat and sugar to feed yeast. Add in fetal alcohol issues, and you have a recipe for disaster going on inside their stomachs. Doesn’t the picture in this blog look pretty? Don’t you want that going on inside your body?
Within a couple of weeks, we saw an amazing difference. Sammy’s aggression went down, his sugar craving diminished greatly, his hyperactivity was under control, he began to laugh and smile more often, and overall, just began to bond with us.
We came under heavy criticism from social services because we weren’t feeding Sammy “normal” kid food such as macaroni & cheese, pizza and McDonalds. Nope, we were eating healthy, home made food, with few preservatives. It does require a big change in your life, but for us, the rewards were incredible. When Sammy does come back home, we will be back on “the diet”.
If you are interested in learning more, there is a group of incredible Moms who have started the AttachASD yahoo group that you can join, and talk with other parents who are using this type of diet with their child. You can also find website on gluten free as well as gluten free and casein free diets and products. We have eaten many of them, and they are actually very good.