Moms-to-be, take note. European experts advise against epilepsy drug in pregnancy

An expert committee of Europe’s medicines watchdog recommended Friday that a drug used to treat epilepsy and linked to malformations in children not be used in pregnancy. The compound, valproate, is also used for migraine and bipolar disorder, and doctors already advised against prescribing the medicine for pregnant women in France. France’s medicines regulator, known by the acronym ANSM, asked the London-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) to conduct a risk review. The EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) said in a statement Friday it was recommending that valproate not be…

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What is Epilepsy: Its Causes and Treatment

The word “epilepsy” comes from the Greek word, “epi” which means “upon” and “leptos” which means “seizure”. People with epilepsy tend to have recurrent seizures (fits). The seizures occur because of a sudden surge of electrical activity in the brain. This causes a temporary disturbance in the messaging systems between brain cells. During a seizure the patient’s brain becomes “halted” or “mixed up”. Every function in our body is triggered by messaging systems in our brain. What a patient with epilepsy experiences during a seizure will depend on what part…

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Epilepsy drugs may increase birth defect risk

Exposure to certain anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) during pregnancy may put women at higher risk of having a child with a malformation, or birth defect, says a study. The study based on systematic review of 50 published studies found that exposure in the womb to the anti-epileptic drug sodium valproate was associated with a 10 per cent chance of the child having a significant birth defect and this rose as the dose of the drug increased. The types of birth defect that were increased were skeletal and limb defects, cardiac defects,…

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Having close relative with epilepsy might also boom autism chance

Having a near relative with epilepsy might also growth someone’s threat of being diagnosed with autism, says a examine. “different research have related the 2 situations. but, our observe appears in particular at the brothers and sisters and sons and daughters of human beings with epilepsy to determine a likely autism danger in those relatives,” stated examine author Helene Sundelin from the university clinic in Linkoping, Sweden. The findings have been published in the on-line issue of Neurology, the scientific magazine of the yankee Academy of Neurology. For the examine,…

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