Pregnancy and paracetamol: risks for the fetus

A meta-study published this September 23 in the journal Nature Reviews Endocrinologycalls on pregnant women to be particularly careful with paracetamol because this painkiller, often wrongly considered harmless, may alter fetal development by acting as an endocrine disruptor. “NOTshady are the pregnant women who do not consider paracetamol as a real drug with possible side effects”, explains Dr. David Kristensen, author of the study and researcher at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). However, researchers have examined all the existing studies on the links between paracetamol and pregnancy published from 1995 to 2020 and their conclusions are unanimous: paracetamol viwould disrupt the production of certain hormones, in both the fetus and the mother. This which would, in turn, increase the risk of certain neurodevelopmental, reproductive and urogenital disorders.

“Based on this research, we believe we know enough to be concerned about the potential developmental risks associated with prenatal exposure to acetaminophen (another name for paracetamol) and therefore call for precautionary measures.

Already last spring, a study conducted by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and involving more than 70,000 children, alerted future mothers to taking paracetamol during pregnancy. According to this study, published in the European journal of epidemiology, children exposed to paracetamol before birth are 21% more likely to develop symptoms of attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity (ADHD) than unexposed children. And they would be 19% more likely to suffer from an autism spectrum disorder.

“We also found that prenatal paracetamol exposure affects boys and girls equally, as we observed virtually no difference,” the researchers add.

Effects already observed in 2019

In 2019, a similar study from the University of Bristol (Great Britain) already showed the link between the regular intake of paracetamol during pregnancy and the development of attention disorders in children. For this study, Professor Jean Golding’s team had followed the behavior of 14,000 children aged 6 months to 11 years, whose memory and IQ were tested until the age of 17. At 7 months pregnant, 43% of their mothers said they had taken paracetamol “sometimes” or “often” in the previous three months. Researchers had found an association between paracetamol use and hyperactivity and attention problems, as well as other challenging behaviors in children that could not be explained by social reasons.

This research published in the journal Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology reinforce the advice already given to pregnant women to avoid taking too many painkillers during their pregnancy.

Another study led by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, had shown that a significant consumption of paracetamol during pregnancy increased the risk of infertility in future young girls.

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