LONDON, March 19 — A new large-scale European study has found that taking painkillers such as paracetamol during pregnancy is not linked to an increased risk of asthma in children.

Led by Seif Shaheen at The London School of Medicine and Dentistry along with researchers at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, the new study looked at data taken from 492,999 Swedish mothers and their children, including information on the mothers’ prescriptions for different types of painkillers during pregnancy and the rates of asthma diagnosis among the children.

Data on the fathers and the children’s siblings was also included to look at how genetic factors and a shared environment may also affect asthma risk.

The findings, published in the European Respiratory Journal, showed that after taking into account other potentially influencing factors, children whose mothers had been prescribed paracetamol during pregnancy did have an increased risk of asthma and wheezing at all ages.

However, the risk was also similar when women had been prescribed opioids such as codeine and tramadol or anti-migraine medication. For example, the increase in risk for asthma at five years of age was 50 percent for paracetamol, 42 per cent for codeine and 48 per cent for migraine medication.

After looking at the data on the fathers, the researchers failed to find a link between genetic factors or shared environment on the risk of asthma. However, after analysing the data on the children’s siblings, they found that the risk of asthma and wheezing appeared to be influenced by factors which affect the mother, such as chronic pain and anxiety, which were not measured in the current study.

"These different types of painkillers work in different ways, but our results suggest that when women are prescribed them during pregnancy, the associated increases in children’s asthma rates are fairly similar for all types,” explained Professor Shaheen. "Our interpretation of this is that it’s less likely that the drugs are responsible for the asthma. Instead, it seems more likely that another factor that we haven’t measured is linked to use of these drugs and to asthma risk. For example, women who are taking prescribed painkillers are likely to be suffering from chronic pain.”

"Severe pain, and the stress that it causes, have profound effects on the body, including on levels of some hormones, and there is evidence for a link between high levels of mothers’ stress in pregnancy and increased risk of asthma in the offspring.”

"If that’s the case then it’s important to manage chronic pain during pregnancy and we should not avoid prescribing painkillers to pregnant women when they are needed. Similarly, women should feel reassured that infrequent use of paracetamol in pregnancy, which is commonly obtained over the counter and is the recommended painkiller to take in pregnancy, is unlikely to cause asthma in their offspring.” — AFP-Relaxnews