LONDON: Taking paracetamol, often called Tylenol within the US, throughout being pregnant is protected, a bunch of European researchers have mentioned, after compiling knowledge in response to President Donald Trump’s claims of a hyperlink to autism final 12 months.
In a evaluate revealed within the British journal The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Ladies’s Well being on Saturday, the workforce mentioned they’d targeted on amassing the best-quality proof to deal with the claims.
“Paracetamol is protected to make use of in being pregnant,” mentioned lead creator Asma Khalil, professor of obstetrics and maternal foetal medication at Metropolis St George’s, College of London.
“The important thing message is reassurance: When used as really useful, the perfect out there proof doesn’t assist a causal hyperlink with autism, ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity dysfunction) or mental incapacity.”
Tylenol not linked to autism or ADHD
Khalil mentioned she had been requested concerning the fashionable ache medicine – also called acetaminophen – by her sufferers after Trump in September informed pregnant ladies to not take the drug. On the time, nationwide and worldwide medical teams decried the president’s feedback, saying they weren’t evidence-based.
A spokesperson for the Division of Well being and Human Companies mentioned in response that “many specialists have expressed concern of the usage of acetaminophen throughout being pregnant.”
Current research have yielded conflicting conclusions on whether or not its use throughout being pregnant may create dangers for a creating foetus. A 2024 examine in Sweden discovered no causal hyperlink to issues reminiscent of autism, whereas a 2025 evaluate by researchers mentioned there was a suggestion of a hyperlink. They suggested that pregnant ladies ought to proceed to make use of acetaminophen as wanted, on the lowest potential dose and for the shortest potential interval.
Paracetamol/Tylenol is the one ache reliever thought-about protected for pregnant ladies, and medical doctors already advise them to make use of it with warning. Untreated, these situations may be dangerous for each pregnant ladies and their infants.
The European researchers performed a scientific evaluate and meta-analysis of current knowledge, discovering 43 research that have been then assessed for high quality and bias utilizing a typical software.
The workforce significantly targeted on research that checked out youngsters born to the identical mom who took paracetamol/Tylenol throughout one being pregnant however not the opposite. These consider shared genetic components and household environments that may very well be linked to autism or the opposite situations studied, Khalil mentioned.
There have been solely three research of this kind, however they have been giant, protecting greater than 260,000 youngsters assessed for autism, and round 335,000 and 405,000 for ADHD and mental disabilities, respectively.
Accounting for bias
They confirmed no important hyperlink between use of the drug and any of the situations studied. This remained the case when outcomes from all the high-quality research that have been assessed have been pooled, the authors mentioned.
Khalil mentioned a lot of the work exhibiting a possible hyperlink, together with the2025 evaluate of 46 research cited by Trump officers, was liable to bias or confounding components that her workforce’s evaluate had tried to account for.
Grainne McAlonan, professor of Translational Neuroscience at King’s Faculty London, who was not concerned within the analysis, praised the examine, including: “I hope the findings of this examine carry the matter to a detailed.”
