Minneapolis St. Paul Mental Health Blog

Women who use a lot of the common pain reliever acetaminophen during pregnancy may be more likely to have children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than those who don’t use the drug.

Researchers analyzed data on almost 113,000 children and their parents, including 2,246 kids who were diagnosed with ADHD. Almost half of the mothers took acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) at some point during pregnancy, researchers report in Pediatrics.

This Alzheimer’s study takes a 2 year look monitoring brain status of 400 people to better understand where the earliest signs appear.

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Use of medications to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with a lower current risk for substance-related events.

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Long-term acetaminophen use by women during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in offspring,

Researchers used data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) to investigate the association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and ADHD; the final sample included 112,973 offspring. Questionnaires were used to assess medication use during pregnancy. Mothers filled out two questionnaires, one during and one after birth; fathers completed surveys on medication use 6 months before pregnancy.

The study authors noted that, "In contrast to previous studies we were able to adjust for indications of acetaminophen use and parental symptoms of ADHD. We were furthermore able to analyze maternal use of acetaminophen prior to pregnancy as a specificity control and to estimate the effect of paternal use prior to pregnancy."

Results showed that after adjustments were made for maternal use of acetaminophen pre-pregnancy, familial risk and indications of acetaminophen use, a modest association between any prenatal maternal use of acetaminophen in one (hazard ratio [HR], 1.07; 95% CI, 0.96–1.19), two (HR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.07–1.38), and three trimesters (HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 0.99–1.63) was observed.

Use of acetaminophen for >29 days in both mothers and father was associated with a two-fold increased risk of ADHD in offspring.

Prenatal use of acetaminophen for fever and infections for 22 to 28 days was associated with an even greater risk for ADHD (HR 6.15 [95% CI 1.71–22.05]). However, use for <8 days was negatively associated with offspring ADHD. This, the authors write, indicates “that the antipyretic effect could be beneficial with regard to fetal development."

In total 52,707 women (almost 47%) took acetaminophen during pregnancy, and 2,246 children were diagnosed with ADHD. Given that paternal use was also associated with ADHD, the authors concluded that they "do not provide definitive evidence for or against a causal relation between maternal use of acetaminophen and ADHD.

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