Study: Prenatal Exposure to ADHD Medication Does Not Impact Neurodevelopment
March 27, 2023The use of ADHD medication during pregnancy causes no impairment of a child’s neurodevelopment or physical growth, according to research published in Molecular Psychiatry.1 A large population-based register study found in-utero exposure to medication for ADHD, including stimulants, did not impair a child’s neurodevelopment or growth compared to children whose mothers stopped taking ADHD medication prior to conception.Research was conducted using data from Danish nationwide registers, including more than one million children born between 1998 and 2015.
Of those, 898 children were delivered by mothers who started or continued taking ADHD medication during pregnancy; this became the study’s “exposed” group.
The “unexposed” group included 1,270 children whose mothers discontinued — but had previously taken — ADHD medication before conception.After adjusting for maternal demographic characteristics and psychiatric data, researchers found no difference in long-term neurodevelopmental or growth outcomes between the two groups.
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