Science / Medicine : No Aspirin-Birth Defect Link Found

Taking aspirin early in pregnancy does not appear to increase the chances that a woman will give birth to a baby with a defective heart, researchers report in a finding contrary to previous studies.

In the largest study of its kind, Boston University researchers failed to find any significant association between aspirin use and five types of potentially fatal heart birth defects.

In the study, the researchers examined the aspirin use of 1,381 women who gave birth to babies with five types of heart defects and 6,966 women who gave birth to babies with other types of birth defects from 1976 through 1986 in Boston, Philadelphia, Iowa and Ontario, Canada.

The researchers failed to find any significant association between aspirin use and the heart deformities overall, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.