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 oversight seizures may be at a marginally increased hazard of having an infant with spina bifida, a recent learn finds. Spina bifida is a shape in which the bones of the spine do not close but the spinal rope remains in place, usually with skin covering the defect impotence treatment. Most children will neediness lifelong treatment for problems arising from wound to the spinal cord and spinal nerves.

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

The backfire is published in the Dec 3, 2010 online copy of the BMJ. For the study, de Jong-van den Berg's yoke reviewed existing examine 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 favoured to have spina bifida, compared with women not taking any anti-epileptic medication.

However, the jeopardize 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 origination defects such as hypospadias, where a boy's urinary birth develops in the opposite part of the penis or in the scrotum. "Carbamazepine is specifically common to an increased risk of spina bifida," de Jong-van den Berg said. "But you have to store in percipience that the absolute risk is small".

For Tegretol taken in the firstly trimester, the overall risk of a major malformation was 3,3 percent, the memorize 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 tenable to have an infant with spina bifida and seven times more apposite have an infant with hypospadias, compared with women using other anti-epileptic drugs.

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

Women beggary to stability the gamble and benefit of these drugs. Women with epilepsy stress to stay on an anti-epileptic drug while they are pregnant. "The endanger of seizure to themselves and potentially to their fetus is greater than the risk of anti-epileptic drugs".

There are variant drugs, specifically lamotrigine (Lamictal) and levetiracetam (Keppra). However, there is undersized 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 penury to recall the risks associated with Tegretol japan. "If a female is of childbearing possible and you are prescribing this drug, that's when the chin-wag needs to occur".