Use Of Medicines For Epilepsy During Pregnancy Can Cause A Risk To The Child

Use Of Medicines For Epilepsy During Pregnancy Can Cause A Risk To The Child.
Pregnant women with epilepsy who are taking carbamazepine (Tegretol) to button seizures may be at a measure increased imperil of having an infant with spina bifida, a unknown examine finds. Spina bifida is a circumstance in which the bones of the spine do not close but the spinal string remains in place, usually with skin covering the defect startvigrx.top. Most children will insufficiency lifelong treatment for problems arising from invoice to the spinal cord and spinal nerves.

And "For women with epilepsy, seizing control during pregnancy is very important," said hint researcher Lolkje de Jong-van den Berg, from the classification of pharmacy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. "Our scrutinize can help in decisions regarding whether carbamazepine should be the drug of choice in pregnancy". However, the best alternative regarding treatment can be chosen only on an individual footing by the woman and her neurologist before pregnancy, weighing the benefits of epilepsy subdue against the risk of birth defects, de Jong-van den Berg said.

The reveal is published in the Dec 3, 2010 online issue of the BMJ. For the study, de Jong-van den Berg's party reviewed existing enquiry to determine the risk of birth defects among women taking Tegretol. The researchers found that infants of women taking Tegretol were 2,6 times more undoubtedly to have spina bifida, compared with women not taking any anti-epileptic medication.

However, the chance associated with Tegretol was less than with another anti-epileptic drug- valproic acid (Depakene). In fact, Tegretol was less dangerous than valproic acid when it came to other confinement defects such as hypospadias, where a boy's urinary start-up develops in the dishonest part of the penis or in the scrotum. "Carbamazepine is specifically interrelated to an increased risk of spina bifida," de Jong-van den Berg said. "But you have to put in be troubled that the absolute risk is small".

For Tegretol taken in the start trimester, the overall risk of a major malformation was 3,3 percent, the contemplate authors reported. The same group of researchers found in another study, published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, that women taking valproic acid were six times more indubitably to have an infant with spina bifida and seven times more proper have an infant with hypospadias, compared with women using other anti-epileptic drugs.

The researchers jibe with a commendation from the American Academy of Neurology that valproic acid should be avoided in pregnancy if possible. Dr Orrin Devinsky, headman of the Epilepsy Center at NYU Langone Medical Center, said that "for women of childbearing age, these drugs typify a risk".

Women have occasion for to steadiness the danger and benefit of these drugs. Women with epilepsy neediness to stay on an anti-epileptic drug while they are pregnant. "The jeopardize of seizure to themselves and potentially to their fetus is greater than the risk of anti-epileptic drugs".

There are choice drugs, specifically lamotrigine (Lamictal) and levetiracetam (Keppra). However, there is slight data on any dangers associated with these drugs during pregnancy. Another expert, Dr Kimford Meador, a professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine, said women extremity to positive the risks associated with Tegretol pills 4 party. "If a handmaiden is of childbearing undeveloped and you are prescribing this drug, that's when the discourse needs to occur".