Will Tylenol Cause Your Child To Have ADD or ADHD?
(CBS4) -Tylenol, or acetaminophen, is considered to be one of the safest drugs in pregnancy. But a new study suggests that women who took acetaminophen at certain times during pregnancy may be putting their child at risk for later problems with behavior and hyperactivity.
The study is the journal JAMA Pediatrics and followed close to 8000 women who had babies in 1991 and 1992.
The study says that the risk of problems increased up to 42% when a child reached age 7 when women took the OTC pain and fever medication at either 18 weeks or 32 weeks of pregnancy
Yet before you put acetaminophen on the do-not-take list, it's important to recognize that this study doesn't prove the drug causes problems. In fact, far from it.
Here are the study's weaknesses:
It did not take into account other possible factors besides the acetaminophen, for example, smoking.
Researchers had no idea how much and how often the women took the drug. One tab. Two? Twenty over two weeks?
There was no direct cause and effect: in other words—take this much acetaminophen and it will cause a behavioral problem later--didn't see that here.
It did not measure the degree of behavioral problems or always use official diagnoses.
All in all, the study proved nothing solid.
Yet it does raise the issue of how important it is to continue to search for causes of ADD and similar issues—there is simply a lot that we don't know about why rates are up.
But popping a Tylenol? As of today, probably safe when used as directed and under a doctor's advice while pregnant. By the way, despite that scary sounding 42% figure, the overall rate of ADD, ADHD, and behavioral problems was only 5%--far from an epidemic. (Still, if you're in that 5%, it's an important number).
Don't panic on this one. Ask your doctor about the risks versus benefits. Acetaminophen remains on the overall safe list.
Dr. Dave Hnida is CBS4's Medical Editor. He blogs about the latest studies and trends in the health world. Read his latest blog entries, check out his bio or follow him on Twitter @drdavehnida
