Donald Trump captured headlines when he told pregnant women, ‘do not take Tylenol,’ because of concerns about its potential links to autism.
Although studies on whether taking acetaminophen (Tylenol) during pregnancy increases autism risk are inconclusive, an overwhelming majority of medical experts agree the drug is the safest option for treating fever or pain in pregnant women.
Now, however, researchers have come forward to warn women over taking other drugs during pregnancy, including anti-nausea medications, saying some could raise the risk of their children developing cancer years, or even decades, later.
Caitlin Murphy, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of Chicago who is spearheading research in this area, told the Daily Mail: ‘Our findings suggest that events in the earliest periods of life… can affect the risk of cancer many decades later.’
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A surge in early-onset cancers in young people has alarmed health officials, with today’s Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) at heightened risk of 14 types of cancer compared to their parents’ generation.
They are also nearly twice as likely as their parents to develop colon cancer.
Doctors have blamed higher obesity rates and ultra-processed foods for the rise, but some experts are now starting to point to changes in medical practices in the second half of the 20th century.
It was during this time that expectant mothers were first being offered drugs, not as the exception, but as the new standard, Murphy said, to treat everything from depression and nausea to infections and hormone fluctuations.
President Trump is pictured above during the press conference where he warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol (acetaminophen) despite conflicting evidence
The above shows how the proportion of pregnant women taking prescription medication has risen in the US in recent years. It is based on data from Providence St Joseph
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Murphy said: ‘Colon cancer was increasing in young people, and I noticed in the epidemiological data that there was this really clear birth cohort effect, or that the rates were really increasing among people born after 1960.
‘As an epidemiologist, when I see that kind of trend, it signals to me, “Aha! There might be something very early in life that’s contributing to this phenomenon.”
‘And when I say very early, I mean as early as gestation.’
Among commonly prescribed medications was Bendectin, a prescription drug used to treat morning sickness. Murphy’s research found that children of mothers who took the drug while pregnant were twice as likely to develop colon cancer as those whose mothers did not.
The drug was withdrawn by its manufacturer in 1983 amid lawsuits alleging it caused birth defects. But a component of the medication, Dicyclomine, known as Bentyl, is still available with a prescription. It is used to treat irritable bowel syndrome, and studies have only linked it to cancer if used during pregnancy.
Concerns have also been raised over hydroxyprogesterone caproate, known by the brand name Makena, given to women carrying high-risk pregnancies to prevent miscarriages.
Murphy studied the drug in 2021, and found that children of mothers who took the medication while pregnant had double the overall risk of cancer compared to kids whose mothers didn’t. Most of the cancer patients were under 50 years old.
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Her study also showed that children of mothers who took the drug while pregnant had a five times higher risk of colon cancer and a four times higher risk of prostate cancer.
Hydroxyprogesterone caproate was withdrawn from the market by the FDA in 2023 after post-approval studies showed it was no more effective than a placebo, but it has been taken by women in the US since the 1950s.
Research has also linked consumption of certain antibiotics during pregnancy to a potentially higher risk of a child developing cancer later in life; and using antihistamines during pregnancy was linked to a nearly three times higher risk of liver cancer for their children.
Though they suggest possible ties, these studies do not prove that taking certain drugs directly caused the offspring’s cancer.
Still, Murphy said the ‘pretty strong signals’ she gets from the data make her ‘very confident’ that the drugs are having an impact.
‘We’ve also done a number of sensitivity analyses to investigate alternative explanations and really, no matter what we adjust for in our models, no matter what subpopulations we look at, nothing explains away what we’re seeing in the data.
‘As such, I feel very confident that what we’re seeing is real.’
The risk detected in the studies exists only for the children of women who took the drugs while pregnant, rather than for anyone who has ever used the drugs and then become pregnant.
It was not clear what may be causing the potential link, but studies suggest that the drugs may interfere with developing organs in the womb.
Up to 95 percent of pregnant women in the US now take at least one prescription medication during pregnancy, estimates suggest, compared to 50 percent in the 1970s.
Doctors prescribe drugs to pregnant women to help manage conditions that can harm both mother and baby, experts say
In addition to reducing pain and nausea, the drugs are used to manage chronic conditions like depression and diabetes that can harm both the mother and the baby if left untreated.
Doctors say that in many cases the drugs are prescribed after carefully weighing the risks of side effects against the impacts of not treating the condition.
Murphy said she had ‘no good answer’ for worried mothers who took the drugs while pregnant – or their children. But suggested that everyone should keep up to date with their recommended cancer screenings, as detailed by the American Cancer Society.
