No, in keeping with the WHO, ACOG and AAP. No research have proven that acetaminophen causes neurodevelopmental points.
Whereas well being specialists advocate limiting acetaminophen use in being pregnant to solely when needed, a number of the most reassuring information comes from a 2022 examine within the journal The Affiliation for Baby and Adolescent Psychological Well being and a 2024 JAMA examine that checked out practically 2.5 million Swedish kids born between 1995 and 2019. Each discovered no causal hyperlink.
The Swedish examine discovered a marginal statistical affiliation between a pregnant particular person’s use of acetaminophen and an elevated danger of autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD). However that affiliation disappeared as soon as siblings in the identical household whose moms both did or didn’t take acetaminophen had been in contrast, lead writer Brian Lee, an epidemiologist at Drexel College’s Dornsife Faculty of Public Well being, wrote in an electronic mail to Stay Science.
That makes it unlikely that acetaminophen causes autism. Quite, there are different components, or confounders, that each make folks extra more likely to take the ache reliever throughout being pregnant and extra more likely to have a baby with autism. “Affiliation will not be causation,” Lee mentioned.
What’s doubtless behind the affiliation is that individuals who take acetaminophen are doing so to deal with a medical situation resembling an an infection, fever, headache or migraine, and “all of those components have been discovered to be related to danger of autism within the little one,” Lee mentioned.
What’s extra, scientists know there’s a big genetic part to autism, and ladies with genes that increase the danger of neurodevelopmental problems are likely to report extra being pregnant ache and use of acetaminophen. That very same genetic danger of a neurodevelopmental dysfunction is handed on to their little one, Lee added.
However, on Sept. 22, the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration introduced that it’s going to difficulty a doctor discover and provoke a security label change for acetaminophen, whereas the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) will launch a public service marketing campaign, HHS introduced.
