Pregnancies in women with epilepsy

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the outcomes of all the pregnancies of each woman with epilepsy in the Australia Pregnancy Register. Data from 1,290 pregnancies in 612 women with epilepsy were analysed, including 156 women who took no AEDs in the first trimester of at least one pregnancy. Spontaneous miscarriages were more frequent in AED-exposed pregnancies. There was an overall 13·95% risk of a woman taking AEDs during pregnancy having a malformed foetus at some stage of her reproductive career, at least to the time of the present analysis. This risk increased with (i) first trimester exposure to VPA, particularly in maternal doses above 1,100–1,400 mg per day, (ii) the number of preg..