Here’s
a bit of information from the epilepsy action website to put the risks of AEDs
on the unborn baby and inheritance of epilepsy in perspective…
Anti-epileptic
drugs and the epilepsy itself put the baby at a slightly increased risk of
major congenital malformations that need medical treatment for example spina
bifida, a hole in the heart or cleft palate.
The risk seems to be greatest during the first three months of
pregnancy.
One or
two babies in every hundred born to women without epilepsy have a major
congenital malformation. If you have
epilepsy and don’t take AEDs the risk is around two in a hundred
Different
anti-epileptic drugs carry different risks and there is an epilepsy pregnancy
register to gather more information about the risks, sodium valproate in
particular is associated with an increased risk of major birth defects. The risks are increased if you take more than
one type of anti-epileptic drug.
Babies
born to women with epilepsy have a slightly higher risk of having a minor
congenital abnormality, for example, small fingers, small toenails, and facial
abnormalities such as wide spread eyes.
When
planning a family all women in the UK are advised to take a folic acid
supplement. It is recommended that women with epilepsy take 5 mgs of folic acid
every day for at least three months before you conceive and continued
throughout the pregnancy. Folic acid is a vitamin which helps protect against
neural tube defects such as spina bifida.
In the
general population 1 in 103 people have epilepsy. Less than one child in every
10 born to a parent with epilepsy will develop epilepsy. There are three different ways in which
epilepsy can be inherited:
- A person’s low epileptic seizure threshold may be passed to the next generation through the genes.
- Some types of epilepsy seem to run in families, for example, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.
- Epilepsy can be one of the symptoms of another inherited medical condition, for example, tuberous sclerosis.
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