Usually, women who are going to become mothers carefully monitor their diet and try to avoid medications as much as possible. However, some situations may necessitate medication during pregnancy. And since paracetamol is one of the most popular painkillers, it is also prescribed to mothers-to-be, which research shows has some effect on babies.
In Western Europe and America, the most popular drugs, which are also available on the shelves of a regular supermarket, mainly consist of paracetamol with the addition of additional active ingredients. A woman, being pregnant, can take such a medicine, not knowing that it can harm her unborn child.
Recent studies by scientists from the University of Bristol have shown that paracetamol has a negative impact on the cognitive development of children and provokes the onset of childhood asthma. [1]. While the babies were being tested, their mothers filled out a form with questions, one of which was about taking paracetamol during pregnancy between weeks 18 and 32. Almost half of the participants answered that they took paracetamol either daily or every other day.
Speaking about the effect of paracetamol on the cognitive development of a child, to a greater extent it concerns the development of attention deficit disorder. The peak of its manifestation is 3 years, and at the end of elementary school, all symptoms practically disappear. Scientists have noticed that boys are more susceptible to such changes than girls.
The findings also point to other effects of taking paracetamol during pregnancy. In particular, there is a clear relationship between taking pain medication by the mother and the appearance of childhood asthma or infertility in the child due to a decrease in testosterone levels. This fact was also confirmed in experiments on mice.
All these symptoms are seen when the fetus interacts with paracetamol. But the very reason for taking this medicine by the mother, for example, inflammation, can also adversely affect the child. At the moment, there are no data on such studies, as this requires additional, more narrowly focused study. Therefore, the recommendation from researchers and physicians is to limit the use of paracetamol and resort to it only in extreme cases, and if possible, completely exclude its use during pregnancy. Thus, the likelihood of harming your child will be much lower or completely eliminated. [2].
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- ↑ Onlinelibrary.wiley.com. – Associations between paracetamol (acetaminophen) intake between 18 and 32 weeks gestation and neurocognitive outcomes in the child: A longitudinal cohort study.
- ↑ Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. – Use of paracetamol during pregnancy and child neurological development