Mental Health | Consistent participation in extracurricular sports during the elementary school years predicted ......

......fewer attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms at age 12 in girls......

.....—but not in boys, according to a study in Preventive Medicine.

Understanding ADHD | Lower levels of sedentary activity as measured by actigraphs at age 7 predicted hyperactivity and diagnosis of attention-.....

....deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at age 14, according to a study published online in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

“Interestingly, our results reveal that lower levels of sedentary activity at age 7 were the main predictor for ADHD at age 14, rather than higher levels of vigorous activity,”.

Mental Health | Vitamin D supplementation resulted in a small but statistically significant improvement to ADHD symptoms.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the benefits and harms of vitamin D supplementation in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Mental Health | Heavy use of texting, video chatting, and social media may contribute to the onset of symptoms of attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in youth, new research suggests.

Among a large group of adolescents who did not have symptoms of ADHD at baseline, frequent use of digital media was found to be associated with the emergence of new ADHD symptoms.

Mental Health | Pregnant women who have nicotine in their systems from smoking are more likely to have children who develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

And the higher the level of nicotine in a pregnant woman’s blood, the greater her child’s risk of later being diagnosed with ADHD, researchers report in Pediatrics.

Children born to women who smoke cigarettes during pregnancy, especially when mothers are heavy smokers, are at an increased risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Mental Health | Pregnant women who take drugs like Ritalin and Concerta for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)...

...are more likely than those who don’t to have babies with heart deformities and other birth defects, a recent study suggests.

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.

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.

Children whose mothers were frequent cell phone users during pregnancy...

were more likely than those of less frequent users to be hyperactive, a new study finds.