top of page

Chronic Inflammation, the Microbiota, and the Mental Health of Mother and Baby


By: William Parker, PhD


If you’ve seen my lecture at La Leche League International’s annual meeting, thank you! I hope you found it interesting!


Here I review some key elements from that lecture that we can all keep in mind as we work to help families have healthy babies.


  1. Breastfeeding is the way humans get their babies’ immune systems and their bacteria up and running.  Our bacteria and our immune system form a key, intertwined system, so it’s important to breastfeed, and to be healthy while doing it.

  2. A small group of things have profound effect on our health.

    • Diet

    • Physical activity

    • Worry

    • Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin

    • Chemical exposures.

  3. Getting those things under control in a healthy way is vital for our immune system and for passing on a healthy immune system to our baby through breastfeeding.

How a small group of things have profound effect on your health. From Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 2024

I’ve been talking about these factors for over a decade, but a lot of my work is in the scientific literature, and, as you might imagine, those scientific articles don’t always provide a lot of practical advice.  Sometimes the advice is easy to embrace. For example, the American Psychological Associations says that many of us would benefit from watching less dismal news!


I’ve just read Dr. Casey Means’ book called “Good Energy”.  That book does a beautiful job of explaining many health related issues and providing practical advice.  And I learned so much! For example, taking a walk after eating a meal can be super-helpful for energy and immune function.


Dr. Means also provides helpful hints about avoiding contact with a wide range of chemicals that can be harmful to babies but that are present in many places we don’t suspect. In my talk to La Leche League International, I emphasize another chemical exposure, one that I’ve done a lot of research on: acetaminophen (paracetamol) exposure in susceptible babies and children and its connection with autism. 


Most physicians are unfortunately not aware of all of the evidence we have about this connection. For example, a study published almost a decade ago showed that circumcision, a procedure often associated with acetaminophen exposure early in life, is connected with a 2-fold increase in infantile autism (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530408/). And, did you know, that babies lack a key enzyme needed to safely process acetaminophen? Domestic cats are missing the same enzyme, and because of it, they can’t have acetaminophen (https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/11/1/44)!


These and 22 other lines of evidence related to the connection between acetaminophen and autism can be found on our website here or in our published paper here.


Many thanks to the La Leche League International and for the wonderful work they do throughout the world! And many thanks to the organizers of the meeting for allowing me to talk with them!

bottom of page