President Donald Trump told pregnant women to “tough it out” before taking Tylenol for fever or pain, but doctors tell USA TODAY this is dangerous advice.

In a Sept. 22 news conference, the president announced the Food and Drug Administration will notify physicians that the use of acetaminophen is associated with an increased risk of autism.

Acetaminophen, often sold under the brand name Tylenol, has long been considered the safest option for managing headaches, fever and other pain during pregnancy. Trump urged pregnant women to “fight like hell not to take it."

But there’s a “long and rich” scientific literature that shows fevers, especially in early pregnancy, carry “really significant” risk of morbidity and mortality for pregnant people and infants, said Laurel Gabard-Durnam, assistant professor and associate director of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University.

“You need to treat fevers in pregnancy,” she said. “You can’t let them go untreated, let them get elevated and have them for a prolonged time because the health risks are very well-known, very established and very significant.”

While dozens of studies have linked a pregnant person's frequent use of acetaminophen to autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in their child, others have also found competing evidence.

Dr. Steven Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the studies that showed a causal relationship had “methodological limitations – for example, lack of a control for confounding factors or use of unreliable self-reported data.”

However, the link between fever and neurodevelopmental disorders is more definitive, Gabard-Durnam said.

For example, a 2019 study found that children exposed to a fever twice or more in the first trimester of pregnancy had more than double the odds of receiving an ADHD diagnosis, according to the report published in Scientific Reports.

Researchers also found the results were similar whether the mother had taken acetaminophen for their fever or not, showing that using the pain reliever did not impact risk.

A large meta-analysis published in the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Autism in 2021 provided further evidence that maternal fever during pregnancy was linked to neurodevelopmental disorders in children after analyzing studies that involved more than 10,000 children.

There’s also some evidence suggesting that fevers are associated with neural tube defects, which impact a fetus’s brain, spine or spinal cord during the first month of pregnancy, Gabard-Durnam said.

If a pregnant person experiences pain or a fever, the first thing they should do is contact their medical provider to rule out more serious health conditions like preeclampsia, said Dr. Caitlin Baptiste, maternal-fetal medicine physician and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University.

But after touching base with your doctor, Tylenol is the best medical option to treat fevers and headaches, she said.

“We don’t have answers as to why we have children with autism and neurodevelopmental delays … and that’s always scary as parents so I understand why researchers and our administration is trying to come up with answers,” Baptiste said. “But Tylenol does not seem to be that answer.”

Staying hydrated, turning off the lights, going into a quiet room or relaxing can also be helpful nonmedical options for a headache, she added.

For women who took Tylenol during their pregnancy, Baptiste said Trump's comments don't need to be added "to the long list of worries and second-guessing that we experience as parents." But if parents are concerned, she recommends visiting their child’s pediatrician to discuss potential testing.

As someone who took Tylenol during her pregnancy to treat migraines, Gabard-Durnam agrees.

“This is not the time to look backwards and have any more mom guilt than we already often have. This is not the moment to regurgitate the tired story of blaming the mom,” she said. “If you followed the guidance of your doctors… you’re doing the best for yourself and your child.”

Adrianna Rodriguez can be reached at adrodriguez@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pregnant with pain or fever? Trump says 'fight like hell.' What do doctors say?

Reporting by Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect