Intrauterine exposure to methylphenidate during the first trimester may be associated with a small increase in the risk of cardiac malformation, a cohort study examining the risk of congenital malformations following exposure to stimulants has found.1 The findings identified the potential safety concern in a USA cohort and replicated the analyses in a Nordic validation cohort.

The study was published by the International Pregnancy Safety Study consortium, a collaboration of research groups with access to healthcare databases that are able to study the safety of medicines in pregnancy.1 The initial analysis was conducted using a USA Medicaid cohort consisting of pregnant women aged 12 to 55 years (1,813,894 pregnancies). A pregnancy …