The Trump Administration’s Tylenol in Pregnancy Claims Are the Newest Way to Blame Mothers for Autism

And it’s not just a question of hardening. ACOG declares that there are several conditions during pregnancy that acetaminophen is essential to help treat, including preeclampsia of the deadly condition.

“The conditions that people use of acetaminophen to treat during pregnancy are much more dangerous than all the theoretical risks and can create severe morbidity and mortality for the pregnant and the fetus,” the press release said.

All this aside, the idea that we must discover a “cause” of autism is a defective premise in itself.

“Autism is a diversified and permanent handicap with a complex spectrum, shaped by a combination of genetic, biological and environmental factors,” the American autism company said in a press release after Trump’s announcement. “To date, no cause or healing has been identified after decades of rigorous research.”

Bleaming the mother of a child for having “caused” neurodiversity as autism is nothing new. This has happened since even before we have a name for the spectrum.

In the first researchers of the 1930s who study what we now call autism “identified aberrant parenting” as its cause, according to the AM Journal of Ethics. One of the best known theories was that of the “mother of the refrigerator”, the women whom researcher Bruno Bettelheim was affirming were “cold and detached” and whose terrible parenting led their children to become autistic.

Of course, that was completely false, Danielle Hall, director of health equity at Autism Society of America, says CharmBut the damage was enormous. Not only were mothers stigmatized and mounted with guilt for decades above affirmations, but significant research on the condition was significantly hampered due to disinformation. Even well in the 80s and 90s, mothers were designed to feel guilty in one way or another so that their children are diagnosed.

“Like the refuted vaccine myths caused lasting damage, the scapegoats of a common and safe medicine as the acetaminophen threaten to retraumatize families, to mislead the public and undermine confidence in science,” she said. “Autism does not have a single cause, and blame mothers, whether through obsolete theories or new unsecured affirmations, distracted from what really matters: services, inclusion and support based on evidence improves autistic life.”

However, all of these facts are now facing a difficult battle. When the country’s most powerful person declares something true, even if they do it “without the support of reliable data”, as Acog said, it is likely that many women will no longer feel comfortable to use the pain relievers during pregnancy and that mothers of autistic children could begin to believe that they are at fault for the neurodiversity of their children.

The Noa Sterling, MD, Facog, Ob-Gyn certified and creator of Sterling parents, a health education platform, has seen the false allegations, even when they are not co-signed by the president, can spread online. She educates her more than 300,000 subscribers on the medical science of pregnancy on Instagram daily, and she says that she started her platform because she saw so much creeping disinformation online.

She finds that the blame is imposed on mothers to be incredibly frustrating and says that it will cause more pain and anxiety for women to which she speaks.