ArticlePaediatric and perinatal epidemiology2020
Associations of acetaminophen use during pregnancy and the first year of life with neurodevelopment in early childhood.
Article in Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluation of the evidence on acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders using the Navigation Guide methodology.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2025Pooled it
- Use of dipyrone during pregnancy and risk of congenital anomalies: a systematic review.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Long-Term Safety of Prenatal and Neonatal Exposure to Paracetamol: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Prevalence and predictors of analgesic use during early pregnancy in a Brazilian population.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Prenatal exposure to psychotropics and analgesics on cognitive, linguistic and educational outcomes - a scoping review with focus on validity and reliability of outcome measures.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Postnatal acetaminophen exposure and neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18-21 months corrected gestational age in preterm infants <29 weeks gestation: a retrospective cohort study.Pediatric research · 2024Article
- Paracetamol use in pregnancy: Not as safe as we may think?Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica · 2023Article
- Maternal acetaminophen use and cognitive development at 4 years: the Ontario Birth Study.Pediatric research · 2023Article
- Sex-specific neurobehavioral and prefrontal cortex gene expression alterations following developmental acetaminophen exposure in mice.Neurobiology of disease · 2023Article
- In Utero Exposure to Caffeine and Acetaminophen, the Gut Microbiome, and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes: A Prospective Birth Cohort Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Maternal use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and neurobehavioral problems in offspring at 3 years: A prospective cohort study.PloS one · 2022Article
- Paracetamol use during pregnancy - a call for precautionary action.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2021Review
- Paracetamol (Acetaminophen) and the Developing Brain.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Intrauterine Exposure to Acetaminophen and Adverse Developmental Outcomes: Epidemiological Findings and Methodological Issues.Current environmental health reports · 2021Review
- Associations between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and child neurodevelopment: Truth, bias, or a bit of both?Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundOver-the-counter analgesic use during pregnancy, particularly acetaminophen, may be associated with negative developmental outcomes in children.
objectiveEstimate associations of prenatal and early-life exposure to acetaminophen in early childhood with cognitive, motor, and language skills in two birth cohorts.
methodsThe American Project Viva cohort (1217 mother-child pairs enrolled 1999-2002) assessed cognition at approximately 3 years using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Wide Range Achievement of Visual Motor Abilities (WRAVMA). The Brazilian 2015 Pelotas Birth Cohort (3818 mother-child pairs) assessed cognition at 2 years using the INTERGROWTH-21st Neurodevelopment Assessment. We used linear regression to estimate associations of acetaminophen use during pregnancy (Project Viva and Pelotas) and infancy (Project Viva) with children's cognitive scores adjusted for maternal age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, education, parity, race/ethnicity, smoking and alcohol use during pregnancy, depression during pregnancy, antibiotic and ibuprofen use during pregnancy, household income, and child's sex.
resultsIn Project Viva, exposure to acetaminophen in both the 1st and 2nd trimester of pregnancy was associated with lower WRAVMA drawing scores (β -1.51, 95% CI -2.92, -0.10). However, in Pelotas, exposure to acetaminophen in both the 1st and 2nd trimester of pregnancy was not associated with INTER-NDA motor scores (β 0.02; 95% CI -0.05, 0.09) and was associated with higher INTER-NDA total scores (β 0.08, 95% CI 0.01, 0.16). Other comparisons did not show evidence for any associations.
conclusionsInconsistencies and lack of specificity of the findings did not clarify the research question considering that we still have a large variability and uncertainty to define the risk or safety in the use of acetaminophen related to cognition in early childhood. More studies using better exposure assessment and better confounding variables are needed to clarify these associations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.