PSA: Tylenol during pregnancy linked to ADHD

[momhappy]

I think the realm of pregancy and being a mother is so difficult, and fraught with guilt.

Moms, forgive yourselves if this is true. If you know you tried your best, you tried your best. End of story. If you feel guilt, that shows you are a loving and caring mother.

As for medical recommendations, they are only based on the current knowledge. Your doctor is not an all-knowing being. They are trying their best also. I am not medical doctor, but I think the burden they carry is also high.

Out of all of the posts in this thread, this is my favorite. I agree and you said it so much more eloquently than I ever could have.

 

[monarch64]

As a biomedical scientist there are 2 things I know for sure

1) correlation does not mean causation

2) the media often gets it spectacularly wrong when they report on these things. Their primary job is to sell ad space.

These types of studies are very difficult to interpret. The authors were looking for a specific piece of data, the study was not randomized or blinded since it's retrospective. I don't see a single published piece of data indicating acetaminophen is predicted to have an effect on ADHD or any other behavioral trait. So one single study that isn't properly controlled means more research is warranted, not that you should never take Tylenol.

If every drug were tested to look for every possible negative effect over any length of time no drug would ever make it to market. Drug testing has flaws, each humans body works slightly differently and then we add on the confounding variables of the environment people live in and how that effects things... It's impossible to make sure any drug is "absolutely" safe.

We still know so little about how these meat-bags we live in really work. Life is complicated, figuratively and literally. All we can do is try to take care of ourselves and accept that we will probably never know exactly what that entails.

I'm sorry...MEATBAGS!!! I read that and died laughing! (The rest of your post was taken very seriously, though.)

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

As a biomedical scientist there are 2 things I know for sure

1) correlation does not mean causation

2) the media often gets it spectacularly wrong when they report on these things. Their primary job is to sell ad space.

These types of studies are very difficult to interpret. The authors were looking for a specific piece of data, the study was not randomized or blinded since it's retrospective. I don't see a single published piece of data indicating acetaminophen is predicted to have an effect on ADHD or any other behavioral trait. So one single study that isn't properly controlled means more research is warranted, not that you should never take Tylenol.

If every drug were tested to look for every possible negative effect over any length of time no drug would ever make it to market. Drug testing has flaws, each humans body works slightly differently and then we add on the confounding variables of the environment people live in and how that effects things... It's impossible to make sure any drug is "absolutely" safe.

We still know so little about how these meat-bags we live in really work. Life is complicated, figuratively and literally. All we can do is try to take care of ourselves and accept that we will probably never know exactly what that entails.

I'm sorry...MEATBAGS!!! I read that and died laughing! (The rest of your post was taken very seriously, though.)

Ditto. Meat bags deserves a ROFLMAO!

 

[LaraOnline]

Had to bump this thread because my husband had a long-overdue eye test this weekend.
Turns out he has a toxoplasma scar on his retina, from a toxoplasma infection contracted from his mother while in utero.
I won't be mentioning this to his mother, of course!

But... all those warnings we do know well - to avoid eating uncooked meat, to be careful to clean uncooked vegetables really, really well or maybe peel your salad veg the old fashioned way...to be very careful gardening and, importantly, to avoid dealing with cat litter trays...
these are important warnings, as it is quite common to have this infection unfortunately.

As a healthy adult it is most likely you will never even know that you had the infection in the first place, but it can have important ramifications for your own eye health, and the health of your child if you have an infection while pregnant.

Really as a community we should be aware of these issues before pregnancy as well as it is possible for a previous obtained toxoplasma infection to flare while your immune system is slightly compromised by your pregnancy.