Acetaminophen use during pregnancy not clearly linked to autism, ADHD, review finds

Taking acetaminophen during gestation is not intelligibly linked to autism oregon attention-deficit/hyperactivity upset (ADHD) successful children, a caller reappraisal finds.

The taxable has been successful the headlines since September erstwhile President Donald Trump warned that acetaminophen usage successful gestation was "associated with a precise accrued hazard of autism" and the president advised large women, "Don't instrumentality Tylenol."

At the time, national officials cited an August 2025 meta-analysis from researchers astatine Mt. Sinai, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Heath, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and UMass Lowell that recovered prenatal vulnerability to acetaminophen whitethorn beryllium associated with an summation successful rates of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and ADHD, successful children.

However, the caller investigation published Sunday successful BMJ besides examined a wide scope of antecedently published reviews --and did not find specified clear-cut evidence.

As portion of the caller analysis, researchers from the U.K, Spain and Australia looked astatine 9 systematic reviews that reported connected the results of 40 studies examining maternal usage of the over-the-counter symptom medicine portion large and kid neurodevelopment.

Those 9 reviews recovered a imaginable relation betwixt large people's usage of acetaminophen, besides known arsenic paracetamol, and "adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes."

The squad recovered that 7 of the 9 reviews warned against drafting a causal nexus betwixt usage of the medicine successful gestation and autism, ADHD oregon both.

Generic acetaminophen tablets.

Jorge Martinez/Getty Images

Additionally, they recovered that galore of the 9 reviews had captious flaws specified arsenic not having a broad hunt of the technological literature, not listing excluded studies and the crushed for their exclusion, inaccurate survey designs and utilizing non-standard tools for evaluating the hazard of bias, according to the caller review.

Dr. Shakila Thangaratinam, co-author of the caller reappraisal and enforcement dean of the Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences, astatine the University of Liverpool successful the U.K., said the caller investigation was partially successful effect to Trump's September announcement astatine a White House quality conference that large people's usage of acetaminophen mightiness rise the hazard of autism successful their children, contradicting galore antecedently published studies that person recovered nary causal link.

The president has since repeated that assertion connected societal media and has suggested that young children, including babies, shouldn't beryllium fixed the drug, known by the marque sanction Tylenol, without providing grounds to backmost up the statement.

Thangaratinam said the announcement successful the U.S. "gained a immense magnitude of media attention, which means it became a cardinal portion of conversations successful the wellness attraction space, paracetamol being the commonest medicine that women instrumentality successful pregnancy."

"We wanted to look astatine each of the existing grounds successful the space, look astatine the prime and marque consciousness of it and construe it, truthful that it would assistance wellness attraction providers successful treatment with women and their families," Thangaratinam continued.

She added that, arsenic a advisor obstetrician, she is acrophobic that large radical mightiness clasp disconnected utilizing acetaminophen for precocious fever oregon terrible pain, which tin pb to superior complications for some the parent and the fetus.

In addition, Thangaratinam said determination are concerns that large radical mightiness crook to different over-the-counter medications, specified arsenic ibuprofen, which is not considered harmless to usage successful pregnancy.

Major aesculapian groups, specified arsenic the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) strongly rejected the president's assertion linking acetaminophen successful gestation to autism, calling it "highly concerning," "irresponsible" and "not backed by the afloat assemblage of technological evidence.

For the caller review, researchers recovered that galore of the studies successful the 9 reviews examined did not set for different contributing factors specified arsenic genetics, maternal wellness and outer biology factors.

Only one of the 9 reviews included studies that accounted for shared familial factors utilizing a sibling power analysis, which looks astatine whether an evident nexus is owed to shared genetics and household environment. The studies successful that reappraisal recovered that erstwhile adjusted for the sibling control, any association  betwixt large people's usage of Tylenol and autism oregon ADHD disappeared, according to Thangaratinam.

Donald Trump attends a meal with the leaders of the C5+1 Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, successful Washington, D.C., November 6, 2025.

Nathan Howard/Reuters

She said this means it's precise apt the relation that was initially observed was driven by shared familial, familial and biology factors, arsenic good arsenic unmeasured factors, alternatively than driven by acetaminophen usage successful pregnancy.

Additionally, galore of the reviews looked astatine the aforesaid studies for their analyses.

The researchers rated these 9 reviews arsenic being "low" oregon "critically low" successful the assurance of their findings meaning they whitethorn not oregon could not "be relied connected to supply an close and broad summary of the disposable studies."

Thangaratinam said the statement astir acetaminophen usage successful gestation highlights the deficiency of drugs that person been developed and approved to dainty pain, fever and different aesculapian conditions successful large women.

"One of the reasons wherefore paracetamol is 1 of the fewer drugs we tin springiness [to large women] is determination is not overmuch probe successful the information of drugs successful pregnancy, and a batch of the medications, erstwhile they're successful the proceedings phase, large women are really excluded," she said. "Which means large women [may] ne'er really person an accidental to entree the drugs that really could assistance marque them better. ... So determination request to beryllium a absorption connected cause discovery, arsenic good arsenic successful science, successful pregnancy."