The use of anti-epileptic drugs during pregnancy is a cause for alarm

, Oct. 22 (Reporter Zhang Mengran) Natural Science Research's "Scientific Report" published on the 22nd of a data survey report for pregnancy drug use sounded the alarm. Children born to pregnant women taking the anti-epileptic drug sodium valproate are four to five times more likely to develop neurodevelopmental disease in early childhood, the study showed. Of the 991 French children who had been exposed to sodium valproate, 50 (5 per cent) were diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disease between the ages of 0 and 5, while of the 1710,441 children who had never been exposed to anti-epileptic drugs, only 15,270 (0.89 per cent) were diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disease at this stage.
team from France's National Agency for Drug and Health Product Safety investigated the incidence of neurodevelopmental diseases in young children using anonymous case files from 172,990 children born in France between January 2011 and December 2014. Of the 11,549 mothers who had taken one of the many common anti-epileptic drugs during pregnancy, 15,458 (0.9%) were diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders by the end of 2016.
Overall, children who were exposed to sodium valproate before birth had a higher risk of neurodevelopmental diseases during childhood than children who had never been exposed to anti-epileptic drugs, including a 5.1 times higher risk of intellectual disability, 4.7 times higher risk of language, learning and motor diseases, and 4.6 times the risk of autism spectrum disorder. These increased risks were not detected in children exposed to sodium valproate only in the early stages of pregnancy (the first three months);
women who took the anti-epileptic drugs ramotrigine, carmazepine and Pribarin had a 1.6-fold, 1.9-fold, and 1.5-fold risk of neurodevelopmental diseases, respectively. No increased risk of neurodevelopmental disease was observed in children born to pregnant women who took the anti-epileptic drug chlor nitrositamine, gaba spraying, left ethyl iracetam, or Okassipin.
study showed that exposure to sodium valproate, especially after early pregnancy, was associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disease in early childhood. The researchers also found that the risk of neurodevelopmental diseases associated with exposure to other anti-epileptic drugs was much lower than sodium valproate.