London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Experts at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who have studied the interactions between medications and health for more than a decade, have joined scientists and healthcare professionals globally to reassure the public that it is safe to take paracetamol as recommended during pregnancy. 

This comes following an announcement made in the US on Monday 22 September 2025 which made unsubstantiated claims that paracetamol use during pregnancy increases the chance of children being born with autism when independent experts agree the evidence shows this is not the case 

In the UK, the safety and recommendation of all medicines are continually monitored by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Following the announcement in the US, the MHRA also confirmed that taking paracetamol during pregnancy remains safe and there is no evidence it causes autism in children. 

Laurie Tomlinson, NIHR Research Professor at LSHTM, said: “I have assessed the risks to health from numerous medications over the past 15 years and I am confident that the best available evidence shows us paracetamol is safe to take during pregnancy within the recommended limits and does not increase the risk of children being born with autism. 

“These claims seem to ignore numerous factors, including why paracetamol was taken in the first place. For example, women with hypermobility are more likely to have autistic children (since the two conditions are linked) and so may have needed to take paracetamol for joint pain during pregnancy but it is the shared genetic causes rather than the drug that means that the child is more likely to be autistic. 

“It is complex to interpret clinical data and to be able to distinguish correlation versus causation. In any one set of data, we may see that people later diagnosed with a health condition are more likely to have taken a medication than people not diagnosed. This is what we would refer to as a correlation, and it does not mean that this medication ‘causes’ the condition. Identifying a ‘causal’ link between taking a medication and developing a health condition often requires evidence from multiple types of research, or specific, tailored research eliminating all other differences between groups of patients. 

“Alongside my research experience, I am also the mother of two autistic children and I know that this announcement will cause distress and guilt to many parents, who often ask themselves whether they are to blame. I urge parents to focus on the countless number of reputable sources of evidence published to date that do not show a link between paracetamol and autism, and to seek medical advice from their own GP or health practitioner. I urge you to not get caught up in a political misinformation agenda that is trying to hunt for an ‘easy’ answer as to how autism develops, and does not serve to help our children.” 

Ian Douglas, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at LSHTM, said: “Trying to measure whether exposure to paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism or other neurodevelopmental delays is very difficult.  

“Women who take paracetamol during pregnancy are different from women who don’t for all sorts of reasons. For instance, we have to remember that paracetamol would only be taken for a specific reason, and that many of these underlying reasons could themselves be causes of autism. As an example, paracetamol might be taken because of infection or fever that was severe enough to warrant treatment, or to help manage a long term condition.  

“It’s the job of researchers to account for these differences as best they can, so that if we still see an association, it may indicate a possible cause. This is notoriously difficult to do, because we almost never perfectly measure these differences and many are entirely unmeasured, for example, genetics. 

“A Swedish study last year attempted to bypass some of these problems by making comparisons between siblings whose mothers only used paracetamol in one of their pregnancies. This analysis found no increased risk of autism and concluded that past studies which did find an increased risk were likely to be subject to the problems outlined above. The data they used is also of extremely high quality, and unlikely to be improved on elsewhere. 

“In short, whilst some studies have found small associations between paracetamol and autism, we should be very wary of jumping to a causal link. More robust ways of studying this question have found no increased risk.” 

Sources + more information 

MHRA - Taking paracetamol during pregnancy remains safe and there is no evidence it causes autism in children 

NHS - Guidance on taking paracetamol during pregnancy and breastfeeding