RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pregnant Women with Epilepsy in a Developing Country
Silvia Kochen*, 1, 2, Constanza Salera 1, Josef Seni 1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 5
First Page: 63
Last Page: 67
Publisher ID: TONEUJ-5-63
DOI: 10.2174/1874205X01105010063
Article History:
Received Date: 18/6/2011Revision Received Date: 2/8/2011
Acceptance Date: 5/8/2011
Electronic publication date: 20/10/2011
Collection year: 2011

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
This is the first prospective study carried out in Argentina and Latin America to provide the impact of epilepsy throughout the childbearing years life of women, and pregnancy outcome in a population of pregnant women with diagnosis of epilepsy and antiepileptics drugs (AEDs). Ninety-four women were studied prospectively at the Epilepsy Center, the largest in Argentina. Of the 94 women examined in this study only 10% planned their pregnancy and received folic acid before conception.
More than half of women in our study were on monotherapy, with the most frequently prescribed drugs being carbamazepine and valproic acid. In all, 90.4% of the women had a normal pregnancy and delivery. There were 8.5% spontaneous abortions. Major congenital malformations (MCM) was detected in 10.6% of newborns at birth; in the general population it varies between 1.6-3.2%. The results from this study are helpful in the highlighting correct gaps in knowledge in this population group.