Tylenol/Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy Linked To ADHD In Kids, Study Finds

[Purveyor]

By Melissa Healy

February 24, 2014, 1:44 p.m.

Facing a world full of potential dangers for the babies they carry, pregnant women hear regularly that acetaminophen can be trusted to reduce fevers and relieve aches and pains without causing harm to a developing fetus. But a new study reports that the children of women who took the drug during pregnancy were about 40% more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children of mothers who took none.

Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol and Panadol and is also a component of Excedrin, among other common pain relievers.

The probability of a child developing ADHD symptoms severe enough to require medication increased the most — by 63% — when his or her mother took acetaminophen during the last two trimesters of pregnancy, researchers found. It also rose by about 28% when acetaminophen was used in the third trimester alone. The added risk was smallest — about 9% — when a pregnant woman reported taking the drug only during her first trimester of pregnancy.

The latest study, published Monday by the journal JAMA Pediatrics, does not establish that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen caused the observed increase in diagnosed hyperactivity disorders, prescriptions for ADHD medications, or emotional problems in children reported by parents. But the research was designed to avoid many of the pitfalls of studies that find an association between an environmental exposure and the appearance of a specific outcome many years later.

The new findings are based on more than 64,000 Danish mothers and their children. Researchers gathered details on pregnant subjects’ acetaminophen use long before problems in their children’s learning or behavior would have become evident, allowing the study authors to avoid a problem called “recall bias.”

MORE...

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-tylenol-pregnancy-adhd-risk-20140224,0,2353473.story#ixzz2uHRRCJnZ

[pnwmom]

1. Well, this is really bad news! Especially to the women who are pregnant right now

and have already taken acetaminophen.

Although the research doesn't make clear whether it was the drug that led to the ADHD or, for example, an infection with a fever that led the woman to take the drug.

[bemildred]

3. And it's bad for your liver. nt

[ananda]

4. Bullshit!

Of course, any drug taken to excess can be harmful.

But this obsession with psychological labeling and
particularly ADHD is crazy.

Kids are just kids. Many of them are naturally active,
rambunctious, and rebellious. So what?

[WinkyDink]

5. ITA. Parents get convinced to use Ritalin.

[gollygee]

6. Hmmmm

You aren't supposed to take either ibuprofen or aspirin during pregnancy, so if you get a headache you're going to take Tylenol. How do they know this isn't caused by whatever hormone issue causes pregnant women to get headaches in pregnancy? I had tons of headaches in one of my pregnancies.

[HereSince1628]

7. I don't think this report actually recommended not taking acetaminophen

my reading is it actually suggested that taking acetaminophen was better than letting a fever take its course.

The percentages shown look large. 40% seems like a huge difference but keep in mind that the risk of ADHD in Denmark which is about 12 cases per 1000.

Consequently, when speaking of a 40% difference in 12 between acetaminophen users and non-users they are talking about a difference of 5-ish cases per 1000.

Although a statistically significant difference can be found with the exquisite sensitivity of a sample size over 60,000, the question remains as to whether there is a practical difference between 16 cases per 1000 and 12 cases per 1000.

That's important because this surveillance study postulated no known mechanism for how acetaminophen causes this increase. Moreover acetaminophen clearly is effective against fever. Fever has a well known association with developmental anomalies and the study didn't control for the various reasons of why acetaminophen was taken...and the users in the sample likely include some with the presence of fever. Fever could accompany common illnesses for which would a woman might use an OTC medication, but not attend a clinic.

Within the article, concern is expressed by experts about the known risks of allowing a fever to go untreated during pregnancy, and the recommendation in the article seemed to be against letting a fever go untreated.