New research has found that exposure to opioid pain medications while in the womb may not increase the risk of autism or ADHD, running contrary to findings from other studies. The new research was published in PLOS Medicine.
“While this study is not able to rule out small increased risks with high amounts of exposure, the results suggest that there is not a causal effect of prescribed opioid analgesics on risk for two common neurodevelopmental disorders, providing more data to support decision-making,” said study author Emma N. Cleary of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington in a press release.
For the study, researchers looked at autism rates in over 1.2 million children born in Sweden between 2007 and 2018 who were followed until 2021. A total of 4.4% of children were exposed to prescribed opioid analgesics in the womb.
Ultimately, the researchers found that by age 10, 3.6% of children exposed to a high dose of the drugs in the womb developed autism, whereas the same was true for 2.9% and 2% of children exposed to a low dose in pregnancy or unexposed. A similar trend was found for ADHD. After using different statistical methods, however, and adjusting for potentially confounding factors like genetic and environmental factors, the increased risk disappeared.
“Our findings suggest that the observed associations between prenatal exposure to opioid analgesics and two major neurodevelopmental disorders—autism and ADHD—are largely driven by factors leading up to opioid analgesic use rather than the opioid exposure itself,” said co-author of the study, Ayesha C. Sujan, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, in a press release.
“Our results, therefore, elucidate the critical need to provide pregnant individuals experiencing pain with psychosocial support and evidence-based pain management tools. These can include both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical approaches,” she added.
Sources: EurekAlert, PLOS Medicine