Taking Tylenol during pregnancy may cause autism
Is one of the most common drugs taken by pregnant women causing an autism epidemic?
We all know that pregnancy comes with its share of aches and pains — everything from throbbing feet to that sore back that won’t let you sleep at night.
And for years, millions of pregnant women have been getting the same bad and risky advice. They’ve been told that common OTC drugs like Tylenol (acetaminophen) are safe for both mothers and babies.
But now a new study has proven that every dose of acetaminophen you take could put your little one on the fast track to developing autism.
If you’re pregnant or know an expecting mother, this is an urgent warning you need to hear — before this dangerous drug does a lifetime of damage to a child you love.
I’m sure you remember the Tylenol scare of 1982 like it was yesterday.
Poisoned batches killed seven people, and most of us wouldn’t touch acetaminophen with a 10-foot pole.
And that’s what got Dr. Steve Schultz, whose son is autistic, thinking.
Dr. Schultz studied two national acetaminophen scares, and found out that while people were swearing off the drug, the national autism rate plummeted!
“I saw that children born during both of these acetaminophen poisoning episodes were less likely to have autism,” Dr. Schultz said. “And I knew. Acetaminophen was linked to the rise in autism rates.”
You see, Dr. Schultz was one of the first doctors to theorize that acetaminophen can activate receptors in a child’s brain that disrupt normal development.
But we didn’t have the smoking gun proof — until now.
In a study just published in Autism Research, scientists from UCLA and The Institute of Public Health in Denmark looked at data for more than 64,000 children and their moms over the course of 12 years.
And they found that kids who were exposed to acetaminophen before birth had a significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with autism.
And, unfortunately, the bad news didn’t stop there. These same kids were also more likely to develop a serious condition called hyperkinetic disorder.
That’s a severe type of ADHD that causes limited attention span along with extreme overactivity.
That’s right — these kids were having their brains destroyed by acetaminophen before they were even born!
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first study to connect acetaminophen with ADHD, either. Almost three years ago, these same researchers published a study proving that taking acetaminophen while expecting can up your child’s risk of having ADHD by more than 30 percent.
And the risk was greater in women who took the drug later in pregnancy.
Dr. Beate Ritz of UCLA said that it looks like acetaminophen can disrupt hormones that are critical for fetal brain development.
And trust me — the whole notion that acetaminophen is safe for pregnant moms is a tall tale right up there with Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.
I’ve been warning for years that acetaminophen can damage everything from your gut to your liver. It’s easy to overdose, and acetaminophen is sending nearly 80,000 people a year to the ER.
If there’s a mom-to-be in your life, help me spread the message and make sure she gets acetaminophen out of her medicine cabinet.
Stick with the ice packs and heating pads. They’ll help relieve pain without causing health problems that moms and babies are sure to regret.
Sources:
“Acetaminophen use during pregnancy associated with increased autism risk in Danish Study” Age of Autism, January 6, 2015, ageofautism.com
“Acetaminophen as a cause of the autism pandemic? IT makes absolutely no sense…at first” Safe Minds, September, 2015, safeminds.org
