Too Much Tylenol During Pregnancy Could Affect Development

A new study done by the School of Pharmacy at the University of Oslo in Norway suggests frequent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy may be linked to poorer communication, poorer language skills, and behavior problems in children.

“Our findings suggest that (acetaminophen) might not be as harmless as we think,” Ragnhild Eek Brandlistuen said.

She and her coauthors studied 48,000 Norwegian children whose mothers answered survey questions about their medication use at weeks 17 and 30 of pregnancy, and again six months after giving birth.

They found no development problems tied to ibuprofen.

To read the article yourself click HERE

 

Another clue to Autism: Could Acetaminophen Be A Factor

There is a wonderful discussion about autism at a European site Alliance for Natural Health.

The article “Could paracetamol (acetaminophen) be linked to autism ADHD and asthma in children?” makes some very interesting points:

• The reality is that autism is a complex of conditions, and it is no surprise that the triggers themselves may be equally complex.
• The fact that autism isn’t near the top of the agenda of health authorities around the world is staggering considering the scale of human suffering, along with the social and economic strife it will cause in the decades ahead.

William Shaw PhD (author of Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD, originally published in 1998 and Autism: Beyond the Basics, published in 2009)  published an article in the recently established, peer-reviewed Journal of Restorative Medicine. In it, he makes a case for why acetaminophen use after MMR may play a role in the development of autism.

• Post-vaccination acetaminophen administration is a very common practice by parents and doctors wishing to dampen the fever-related side effects of the vaccine.
• He highlights a curious anomaly.  In Cuba, autism rates are incredibly low (0.00168% of the population) compared with the US (0.5% of the population).  Although Cubans’ vaccine uptake is as high as 95%, acetaminophen is available only on prescription and is not routinely given to prevent or treat vaccine-related fever.
• If you actually go to the article, there is a graph that shows the marked increases in autism and asthma incidence coincide with the replacement of aspirin by acetaminophen in the 1980s.  The timeline of the drug’s history, including downturns in its use due to ‘scares’, reveals striking parallels with the incidence of the conditions.