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Pain Drugs Used By Pregnant Women Linked To Behavioral Problems In Kids

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Pregnant women who take the pain medication acetaminophen — the primary ingredient in Tylenol and other over-the-counter drugs — may be at a higher risk of having children with behavioral problems compared to those who don’t use the drug, a new study suggests.

British researchers examined data from 7,796 women, their partners and their children who had participated in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children from 1991 to 1992, US News reports. More than half of the participants reported taking the painkiller during pregnancy, according to Fox News.

Evie Stergiakouli, lead study author from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, and a team looked at the links between the children’s behavioral problems and the prenatal and postnatal use of acetaminophen by their mothers and partners.

For the survey, the pregnant women were interviewed at 18 to 32 weeks, and again when their children had turned five years old. Another follow-up survey was conducted when the children were seven years old, which reported behavioral problems in the kids.

The study states that expectant women taking acetaminophen between 18 to 32 weeks of pregnancy could spell out future emotional issues, hyperactivity and poor conduct in their children.

Stergiakouli, however, says this doesn’t necessarily mean that expectant mothers should avoid acetaminophen altogether. The potential risks for future children’s behavior should be weighed against the risk of not using the painkiller, she says. “It is still appropriate to use acetaminophen during pregnancy because there is a risk of not treating fever or pain during pregnancy.”

She also noted that the study was limited by not taking into account acetaminophen dosage information or data on how long participants in the survey used the drug — both factors that could have affected the findings.

The researchers plan to study this link further to determine if there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between acetaminophen use and the behavior of children whose mothers had taken the drug.

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