Aspirin during pregnancy may enhance cognitive function in children

A prospective cohort study has linked prenatal use of aspirin to better neurocognitive development in offspring.

Researchers used data from the US Collaborative Perinatal Project (1959–1976) and performed a propensity score-matched analysis of the effect of a short-period, high-dose in utero aspirin exposure on child neurocognitive development.

The analysis included a total of 50,565 singleton live births with maternal information. Maternal characteristics were balanced between women with and those without aspirin exposure during pregnancy. Inverse probability-weighted marginal structural models were applied.

Child neurocognitive development, the primary outcome, was evaluated using the Bayley Scales at 8 months, the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale at 4 years, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and Wide-Range Achievement Test (WRAT) at 7 years.

Results showed that children exposed to aspirin in utero had between 8-percent and 16-percent lower likelihood of having suspect/abnormal or below-average scores in most neurocognitive assessments when compared with unexposed children.

Furthermore, there was a trend toward stronger benefits for children with in utero aspirin exposure for more than 7 days, with even lower risks of having suspect/abnormal or below-average scores particularly on Bayley Mental (relative risk [RR] 0.82, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.74–0.92), WRAT Reading (RR, 0.88, 95 percent CI, 0.78–0.98), and WRAT Arithmetic tests (RR, 0.76, 95 percent CI 0.66–0.86). This association was mainly observed in the second trimester of pregnancy.

More studies are needed to examine the impact of long-period and low-dose in utero aspirin exposure on child neurodevelopment in the short and long term.