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16h ago

Large Swedish Study Finds No Causal Link Between Prenatal Prescribed Opioids and Autism or ADHD

Adjusted analyses attribute earlier links to factors that lead to opioid prescribing, not to typical prenatal exposure levels.

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Similarly, the risk for these neurodevelopmental conditions disappeared when comparing differentially exposed siblings. Credit: Neuroscience News
It's estimated around 7% of women take prescription pain medication during pregnancy

Overview

  • The peer-reviewed PLOS Medicine study by Cleary and colleagues analyzed national registry data on more than 1.2 million births for autism and over 900,000 for ADHD in Sweden.
  • Unadjusted data showed higher diagnosis rates with exposure (autism 2.0% unexposed vs 2.9% low dose and about 3.6–3.9% high dose), with a similar pattern for ADHD.
  • After controlling for genetic, familial, and environmental confounders through multiple designs, including sibling comparisons and pre-pregnancy prescription controls, the apparent risks disappeared.
  • Very high doses or prolonged use were uncommon in the dataset, leaving uncertainty at those extremes, and the research remains observational.
  • Authors advise weighing pain treatment needs in pregnancy and offering psychosocial and evidence-based options, noting the work was supported by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.