Paracetamol probably does not increase the asthma risk of the unborn child. This is the conclusion of a recent study. Although children are more likely to develop asthma when their mothers take paracetamol during pregnancy. However, the increased risk also persists after taking other painkillers, which acted completely differently, according to researchers from Seif Shaheen of Queen Mary University of London. They therefore assume that there are previously unknown causes for the relationship between painkillers and asthma.
Shaheen was the first scientist to discover a correlation between the intake of paracetamol during pregnancy and the increased risk of asthma in the offspring. "This relationship has been identified in a number of studies in different countries," explains Shaheen. So far, however, little has been researched on the use of other painkillers during pregnancy and subsequent childhood asthma.
Together with Catarina Almqvist from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and her colleagues, Shaheen drew on extensive data from Sweden. From various registers they collected information from nearly 500,000 pregnant women as well as fathers and children. The researchers then looked for possible factors influencing the risk of asthma, as reported in the European Respiratory Journal.
Taking painkillers of the father has no influence
The physicians found no statistical connection between the use of analgesics by the father and childhood asthma. This makes it unlikely that the increased risk of asthma can be explained by genetic, environmental, socioeconomic or lifestyle factors shared by mother and father.
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Instead, the scientists registered a connection with various painkillers that mothers took during pregnancy. By the age of five, children's asthma risk increased
- 50 percent for acetaminophen,
- 42 percent for opium-like painkillers and
- 48 percent for migraine medications.
Because these drugs work in very different ways in the body, the researchers suspect that the observations can not be explained with the active ingredients themselves. "For example, women who take prescribed painkillers are likely to suffer from chronic pain," says Shaheen. The associated physical stress in the pregnant woman could possibly affect the children.
Paracetamol is the most commonly used analgesic in pregnancy, says Tobias Welte of the University of Hannover, who is president of the European Respiratory Society and was not involved in the study. According to polls, 73 percent of women who expect a baby are the drug.
"So it's important to know if it can be a cause of childhood asthma," says Welte. The extensive analysis suggests that there is no simple cause-and-effect relationship between paracetamol and asthma. "This means that pregnant women who need it should be prescribed acetaminophen."