Fact check: Can taking Tylenol during pregnancy cause autism in children?

For years, Tylenol has mostly been considered harmless for treating symptom and fever – adjacent during pregnancy, erstwhile doctors discourage patients from utilizing galore medications.

Doctors mightiness adjacent urge taking Tylenol for symptom oregon fever during pregnancy, because, near untreated, they tin airs their ain wellness risks.

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But caller quality reports astir the national authorities connecting Tylenol to autism person drawn caller questions and concerns astir the drug.

A fewer things are clear.

After years of research, nary survey has shown that acetaminophen, the main constituent successful Tylenol, causes autism. There’s nary known single cause of autism, a neurological information that influences however idiosyncratic acts and communicates.

But immoderate technological terms, similar “association”, tin confuse the issue. Some probe says there’s an relation betwixt the depletion of acetaminophen during gestation and autism. Some different probe says there’s nary association.

But either way, there’s an important caveat: “Association” is not the aforesaid arsenic causation. That means that probe showing an relation betwixt the medicine and autism doesn’t mean the medication caused autism.

Here’s what other you should know.

Doctors accidental it’s harmless to usage acetaminophen for fever and symptom during pregnancy

After The Wall Street Journal reported connected Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s plans to nexus Tylenol to autism, starring maternal and prenatal attraction organisations reiterated their longstanding enactment for utilizing acetaminophen during pregnancy.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine said acetaminophen is simply a harmless mode to dainty symptom and fever erstwhile utilized successful moderation.

“Pregnant patients should not beryllium frightened distant from the galore benefits of acetaminophen, which is harmless and 1 of the fewer options large radical person for symptom relief,” said Dr Christopher Zahn, ACOG’s main of objective practice.

In fact, Dr Salena Zanotti, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, told Cleveland Clinic earlier this twelvemonth that acetaminophen is considered the safest cause to instrumentality during gestation for fever and pain.

“When you’re pregnant, it’s riskier to person an untreated fever than it is to instrumentality acetaminophen,” Zanotti said.

Other communal symptom relievers, specified arsenic ibuprofen oregon naproxen, aren’t recommended during gestation due to the fact that they could harm fetal development, Zanotti said. The US Food and Drug Administration said arsenic overmuch successful 2023, advising that specified nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, oregon NSAIDs, shouldn’t beryllium utilized during gestation aft 20 weeks of gestation.

Having an untreated fever portion large tin harm a baby

Ignoring aesculapian conditions specified arsenic fever that could beryllium treated with acetaminophen during gestation is “far much unsafe than theoretical concerns based connected inconclusive reviews of conflicting science”, Zahn said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says fever during gestation has been linked to adverse outcomes, including commencement defects.

Untreated fever and symptom during gestation person maternal and babe wellness risks, including preterm birth, according to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM).

Generic acetaminophen capsules successful Santa Ana, California [AP]

Research has not shown that utilizing acetaminophen during gestation causes autism

No survey has shown that utilizing acetaminophen during gestation causes developmental disabilities, including autism.

But the connection utilized successful technological probe tin beryllium confusing. Words similar “correlation”, “association”, and “increased risk” successful studies astir acetaminophen usage during gestation bash not mean that the medicine caused a disablement similar autism.

“Both ‘association’ and ‘increased risk’ are precise antithetic from ‘proven causal link’,” said Christopher J Smith, main subject serviceman astatine Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center.

The FDA, the SMFM and ACOG person each reviewed the disposable probe connected acetaminophen usage during gestation and consequent neurodevelopmental issues successful children and recovered nary grounds proving the medicine caused those disabilities, Zahn said.

“The immense bulk of the studies done connected acetaminophen usage successful gestation are inconclusive and incapable to corroborate a causal narration betwixt the prudent usage of acetaminophen during gestation and fetal developmental issues,” helium added.

What imaginable associations betwixt acetaminophen and puerility improvement mean

For more than a decade, scientists person investigated imaginable associations betwixt utilizing acetaminophen during gestation and developmental disabilities.

Some studies person recovered affirmative associations betwixt acetaminophen and autism, meaning children whose mothers took the cause during gestation were much apt to aboriginal person autism symptoms oregon beryllium diagnosed with autism.

A 2025 Mount Sinai study that reviewed immoderate existing probe concluded the disposable grounds supported an relation betwixt prenatal acetaminophen vulnerability and accrued incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders.

But the largest survey connected this topic, from 2024, recovered nary grounds supporting an accrued hazard of autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity upset (ADHD) oregon intelligence disablement associated with acetaminophen usage during pregnancy.

The 2024 survey is 1 of the 2 highest-quality studies connected the topic, Zahn said, and neither recovered an relation betwixt acetaminophen usage and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes.

What does this mean for confused parents? Association betwixt acetaminophen and autism is “based connected limited, conflicting, and inconsistent subject and is premature fixed the existent science”, according to the Autism Science Foundation (ASF).

There’s yet different wrinkle: The imaginable for “publication bias”, a operation that describes erstwhile technological publications debar publishing findings that don’t amusement important associations.

That means studies that don’t find an relation betwixt autism and acetaminophen are little apt to beryllium accepted for publication, said Dr Judette Louis, dean of Old Dominion University’s aesculapian schoolhouse and seat of the SMFM publications committee.

What mightiness explicate an relation betwixt acetaminophen and autism?

Research has shown that genetics plays a relation successful autism. Hundreds of genes person been linked to autism, arsenic person immoderate biology factors specified arsenic however aged parents are erstwhile a kid is conceived, debased commencement weights, and fever oregon unwellness during pregnancy, the ASF said.

Brian Lee, a Drexel University epidemiology professor, coauthored the 2024 study, which evaluated information connected astir 2.5 cardinal births successful Sweden from 1995 to 2019 to measure acetaminophen usage during gestation and the hazard of autism. The survey initially replicated a tiny statistical relation betwixt acetaminophen usage and the hazard of autism and ADHD, Lee said.

“However, erstwhile we did a sibling investigation that compared siblings (born to the aforesaid mother), the relation wholly went away,” helium said. “We bash the sibling investigation due to the fact that it allows america to power for familial and biology factors that we bash not different person information on.”

The sibling investigation showed that different factors caused the archetypal statistical association, Lee said. The insubstantial highlighted the anticipation that genetics acted arsenic a adaptable that could foretell some a mother’s usage of symptom alleviation medicine and a child’s hazard of autism.

A mother’s familial predisposition for autism and ADHD, which is besides genetic, is associated with “greater gestation pain, much headache and migraine, and much usage of pain-relieving medications”, Lee said. In different words, mothers who are genetically predisposed towards autism oregon ADHD are much apt to person conditions that origin them to usage acetaminophen – and that aforesaid familial predisposition could beryllium what increases the likelihood of a kid having those conditions.

Another consideration: Many studies trust connected parents self-reporting acetaminophen use, truthful the information could beryllium unreliable.

Someone mightiness beryllium much apt to retrieve taking acetaminophen during gestation if their kid has autism oregon ADHD, for illustration – particularly if they deliberation determination could beryllium a transportation betwixt the cause and the diagnosis, according to Dr Erin Clark, a University of Utah obstetrics and gynaecology professor. A idiosyncratic mightiness besides beryllium little apt to retrieve taking acetaminophen during gestation if their kid hasn’t received specified a diagnosis.

Zoe Gross, manager of advocacy astatine the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said different considerations mightiness explicate immoderate relation betwixt acetaminophen and autism. Conditions that origin idiosyncratic to instrumentality acetaminophen during gestation – specified arsenic fever oregon migraine – mightiness summation the likelihood that a kid volition beryllium autistic.