After President Donald Trump told a room full of reporters that taking Tylenol during pregnancy was linked to a “very increased risk” of autism in children, several patients had questions for Dallas Reed, the chief of genetics and an OBGYN at Tufts Medical Center.<\/p>\n
“Is this why my child has autism?” Dr Reed said one parent asked her about having taken Tylenol while pregnant.<\/p>\n
Dr Reed said she expects to have many more of these conversations with expectant mothers going forward, to reassure them that research does not show a conclusive link between Tylenol and the disorder.<\/p>\n
“Anxiety is at an all-time high during pregnancy,” she said. <\/p>\n
“I think it’s unfortunate that now there’s another thing on that list of topics that we need to do a deep dive into with our patients.”<\/p>\n
Doctors who spoke to the BBC said Trump’s remarks could spark unnecessary fear among pregnant patients and put their health at risk, with few other safe options to treat potentially dangerous fevers and pain.<\/p>\n
Anna Langer, a 42-year old Bay Area resident who is 21 weeks pregnant, said Trump’s comments play on pregnant women’s anxiety. She said it’s “very diminishing for women”.<\/p>\n
“What makes me the most angry is it’s lying to women, and as part of that lie, saying, ‘just suffer through it,'” she said. “[We’re] wanting the best for the baby and we can’t do that with this advice.”<\/p>\n
Dr Reed and other obstetricians say they plan to continue recommending acetaminophen – the main ingredient in Tylenol – to pregnant women when needed, as they say research does not support the claim the pain and fever reliever is linked to autism.<\/p>\n
The widely held view of researchers worldwide is that there is no single cause of autism, a complex condition scientists say is caused by a host of genetic and non-genetic factors. <\/p>\n
The Autism Science Foundation, a US charity, says that based on existing data there is not enough evidence to support a link between Tylenol and autism.<\/p>\n
But it says that taking any medication during pregnancy should be approached with caution and medical advice should be sought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After President Donald Trump told a room full of reporters that taking Tylenol during pregnancy was linked to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-158629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}