- Acetominophen is a common over-the-counter medicine for treating fevers, aches and pains but ingestion during pregnancy may be linked to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Babies may be placed at risk if women take acetoaminophen during pregnancy. The drug is the active ingredient of products like Tylenol amongst many hundreds of OTC medicines. Based on US data from the CDC (Center For Disease Control & Prevention), 65 percent of women in the States take it during pregnancy to control pain.
A team of Norwegian researchers assessed 95,000 pregnant women and mothers over ten years reporting these results in the journal Pediatrics. They found those women who took the drug as an over-the-counter medicine during pregnancy increased the risk of their children being born with ADHD by 220 percent. In this study, long-term use of the drug was 29 days or more during their term.
The study however is clear to ensure that acetoaminophen is a not a cause of ADHD because there could be other factors involved. The study found other correlations which could not be explained. One issue with the study was the lack of a standard in diagnosing the condition as a considerable flaw.
Apparently, pregnant women taking aminoacetophen for less than seven days lowered their risk of ADHD in their children. Also of significance, fathers taking the drug long-term before conception doubled the number of children with ADHD.
A Norwegian study published in 2013 found that babies whose mothers had taken acetaminophen for 28 days or more during pregnancy had motor and cognitive deficits at 3 years old. Similarly, in 2014, a Danish study found links between prenatal acetaminophen use and both a clinical ADHD diagnosis and ADHD symptoms in offspring at the age of 7.
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