For years, expectant parents have faced unsettling warnings about using common painkillers during pregnancy, particularly acetaminophen, widely known by the brand name Tylenol. Those fears have now been sharply challenged by the most comprehensive scientific review to date, which found no evidence that taking Tylenol during pregnancy increases a child’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.
The findings, published this month in a leading peer-reviewed medical journal, are based on an analysis of 43 high-quality studies involving hundreds of thousands of children. Researchers say the results should offer reassurance to pregnant women who rely on acetaminophen to manage pain or fever, conditions that can themselves pose risks if left untreated.
Why this review matters
Concerns about Tylenol and neurodevelopmental disorders gained traction after earlier observational studies reported weak statistical associations between prenatal acetaminophen use and autism diagnoses. Those studies sparked widespread anxiety and, in some cases, prompted calls for stricter warnings despite a lack of clear biological evidence.
The new review set out to answer a critical question: were those associations caused by the medication itself, or by underlying factors that led mothers to take it in the first place?
To do that, researchers focused on the strongest available data, prioritizing studies that compared siblings born to the same mother, where one child was exposed to acetaminophen during pregnancy and another was not. This approach allows scientists to better control for genetics, family environment, and long-term parental characteristics that are difficult to isolate in traditional studies.
Across these sibling-based analyses, the researchers found no increased risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability linked to prenatal acetaminophen exposure.
