Paracetamol in pregnancy ups child's risk of ADHD

A new study reveals that women who use a lot of the common paim relieving acetaminophen during pregnancy may be more likely to have children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD.

The Norwegian study analysed data on almost 113,000 children and their parents and came to the conclusion that using the drug during just one trimester was associated with 7 percent higher odds of having a child with ADHD, while the increased risk was 22 percent for women who used acetaminophen in two trimesters and 27 percent with use in all three trimesters.

While short-term use of the drug did not appear to increase the risk of ADHD, when women took acetaminophen for less than eight days, they were 10 percent less likely to have kids with ADHD than mothers who didn't use the drug at all during pregnancy, the study found.

Women used the medicine for fever and infections for 22 to 28 days, however, were more than six times more likely to have kids with ADHD than mothers who avoided the drug during pregnancy.

Lead author of the study, Eivind Ystorm of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the University of Oslo said that children exposed to long-term use of acetaminophen use during pregnancy were more than two times more likely to have ADHD diagnosed by a specialist in a clinic,' said lead study author Eivind Ystrom of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the University of Oslo.

Overall, researchers estimated that about 4 percent of the children in the study would have an ADHD diagnosis by age 13.

However, one limitation of the study is that long-term use of acetaminophen during pregnancy might indicate a more serious illness or injury, and researchers lacked data on the severity of conditions that led women to use the drug.