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 command seizures may be at a marginally increased gamble of having an infant with spina bifida, a uncharted examination finds. Spina bifida is a shape in which the bones of the spine do not close but the spinal string remains in place, usually with skin covering the defect beach par nanga hgh. Most children will want lifelong treatment for problems arising from devastation to the spinal cord and spinal nerves.

And "For women with epilepsy, annexation control during pregnancy is very important," said live researcher Lolkje de Jong-van den Berg, from the compartmentation of pharmacy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. "Our exploration can help in decisions regarding whether carbamazepine should be the drug of choice in pregnancy" vitobest.club. However, the best chance regarding treatment can be chosen only on an individual essence by the woman and her neurologist before pregnancy, weighing the benefits of epilepsy leadership against the risk of birth defects, de Jong-van den Berg said.

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

However, the jeopardy associated with Tegretol was less than with another anti-epileptic drug- valproic acid (Depakene). In fact, Tegretol was less iffy than valproic acid when it came to other origin defects such as hypospadias, where a boy's urinary cleft develops in the unjust part of the penis or in the scrotum. "Carbamazepine is specifically linked to an increased risk of spina bifida," de Jong-van den Berg said. "But you have to mind in temperament that the absolute risk is small".

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

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

Women constraint to offset the jeopardize and benefit of these drugs. Women with epilepsy be in want of 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 surrogate drugs, specifically lamotrigine (Lamictal) and levetiracetam (Keppra). However, there is itsy-bitsy 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 prerequisite to be familiar with the risks associated with Tegretol proextender usage zГјrich. "If a char is of childbearing dormant and you are prescribing this drug, that's when the chin-wag needs to occur".