Tylenol or tough it out? Either way, moms can’t win

At a news conference in late September, President Donald Trump announced that pregnant women should not take the pain reliever Tylenol. He also cautioned mothers against giving the drug to infants.

His statements cued immediate confusion, concern and, in some cases, guilt felt by pregnant women and mothers across the country.

Scientists have been researching the potential link between Tylenol use and the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, in children for years, but the studies so far have been unable to identify a causal relationship.

The FDA statement confirmed this while also noting that acetaminophen is the safest over-the-counter alternative pain reliever to use during pregnancy because aspirin and ibuprofen have well-documented adverse impacts on the fetus. The statement went on to advise clinicians to consider minimizing the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy.

I can’t speak for everyone who has ever been pregnant, but when I was pregnant, I was hypervigilant about doing everything I could to ensure a healthy baby and delivery. I didn’t have word salad from the White House compounding those concerns.

A primary-care pediatrician recounted for CNN the story of a neonatal intensive care unit colleague in Georgia who said parents are turning down Tylenol use for premature babies born with a heart condition that has long been successfully treated with the medication.

In the early days, the theory was that cold or distant mothers were responsible for their children’s autism. Now, mothers risk criticism for taking pain-relieving medication.

As a result, women are suffering — emotionally and physically — a condition that has become a hallmark of this administration.

Public concern after the statements from government officials was enough to cause a temporary dip in shares of Kenvue, the company that has manufactured Tylenol since 2023. This is not the first time Tylenol has been caught in a public health fallout.

In 1982, seven people died in the Chicago, Illinois, area after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that were poisoned with potassium cyanide.

The deaths caused a national scare, and Johnson & Johnson, which manufactured the drug, pulled 31 million bottles of Tylenol from store shelves. At the time, the medication, created in 1950, dominated the market for pain relief, capturing 35% of the segment. After the deaths, which included a 12-year-old child, Tylenol’s market share plummeted to 8%.

The following year, in 1983, Congress passed the “Tylenol bill,” making it a federal offense to tamper with drugs, and by 1989, the FDA set federal guidelines requiring manufacturers to make certain bottles tamperproof. Authorities never caught the killer.

I was a tween in Chicago during the Tylenol murders, and the memory endured well into adulthood. Whenever I needed medication for pain, I opted for anything other than Tylenol, even though I was aware of all the safeguards that had been put in place after the murders.

It was not until several years ago, decades after the murders, that I began taking Tylenol again. My fear was based on a very real situation, even if there was a small likelihood that I would have taken a tainted Tylenol capsule.