No Tylenol during pregnancy

Okay, this isn't a badly-written headline from shoddy science reporting on HuffPo. It's direct from UCLA on research done there that's being published in JAMA.

'In a report in the current online edition of JAMA Pediatrics, researchers from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health show that taking acetaminophen during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk in children of attention-deficity/hyperactivity disorder and hyperkinetic disorder. The data raises the question of whether the drug should be considered safe for use by pregnant women.'

Acetaminophen is the main ingredient in Tylenol and Excedrin, often recommended instead of NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofin for pregnant women.

The research needs further study, but the numbers are pretty high.

'More than half of all the mothers reported using acetaminophen while pregnant. The researchers found that children whose mothers used acetaminophen during pregnancy were at a 13 percent to 37 percent higher risk of later receiving a hospital diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder, being treated with ADHD medications or having ADHD-like behaviors at age 7. The longer acetaminophen was taken — that is, into the second and third trimesters — the stronger the associations. The risks for hyperkinetic disorder/ADHD in children were elevated 50 percent or more when the mothers had used the common painkiller for more than 20 weeks in pregnancy.'

Were I pregnant at the moment, I'd be laying off the Tylenol until more research is done.

Reshared post from +Les Jenkins

Interesting. My mother has used Excedrin for as long as I can remember. Perhaps that's a clue on where I got ADHD from…