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MINNEAPOLIS – Children born to women taking certain epilepsy medications during pregnancy have no developmental delay by age three compared to children of healthy women without epilepsy, according to a preliminary study released today hui, March 4, 2021, which will be presented to the American The 73rd annual meeting of the Academy of Neurology practically takes place from April 17 to 22, 2021. Most of the women with epilepsy in the study took either lamotrigine or levetiracetam during pregnancy, or a combination of the two.
“Having a seizure during pregnancy can not only harm the mother but also the baby, so seizure control is an important part of antenatal care,” said study author Kimford J. Meador, MD, from Stanford University in Stanford, California, and fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. “Yet anticonvulsants are known to cause birth defects or neurobehavioural problems, but these effects vary widely, with some being very low risk, while others are significant risks. Although the risks associated with some drugs are known and if careful planning can lead to healthy pregnancies, there are newer drugs available whose long-term effects are not yet fully understood. “
The study involved 275 women with epilepsy and 77 women without the disease. All of them participated in the study during pregnancy.
Medicines for epilepsy called anticonvulsants were recorded for each woman who took them. Among women with epilepsy, 74% were on monotherapy, which means that they were taking only one drug. Of this group, 43% were on lamotrigine and 37% on levetiracetam. There were 4% who took no medication and 22% took more than one medication. Of those who took more than one drug, almost half took a combination of lamotrigine and levetiracetam. The drug levels in the blood of women with epilepsy were measured in the third trimester.
The women’s children were assessed at age three with a series of cognitive and developmental tests that measured skills such as vocabulary, listening comprehension, number recall and pattern recognition.
After adjusting for IQ and maternal education, researchers found no difference in developmental scores between children born to mothers with epilepsy and those born to mothers without the condition.
Additionally, they found no developmental differences between the children of mothers with epilepsy that could be related to the different levels of anticonvulsant drugs found in the mothers’ blood samples during the third trimester.
“Although more research is still needed, the results of our study are reassuring for women with epilepsy considering pregnancy because we found no neurodevelopmental or neuropsychological problems in three-year-old children related to antiepileptic drugs,” said Meador said. “When a woman of childbearing age is given an anticonvulsant drug, her doctor should advise her to determine the best drug to control the seizures and minimize the risk to the baby.”
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One of the limitations of the study was that cognitive assessments at age three were not as predictive of outcomes in adolescence and adulthood as assessments at older ages. Another limitation was that the distribution of drugs taken by people in this study may not reflect the use of these drugs in the general population.
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Learn more about epilepsy at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology’s free magazine for patients and caregivers, focused on the intersection of neurological diseases and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
When posting information about this research on social media, we encourage you to use the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting hashtag, #AANAM.
The American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscientists, with over 36,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurological care. A neurologist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis, treatment and management of disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, disease of Parkinson’s and epilepsy.
For more information on the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
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