COMMENTARY

Anticonvulsant medication

The teratogenicity of anticonvulsant drugs: a progress report

L B Holmes

Genetics and Teratology Unit, Pediatric Service, Massachusetts General Hospital, Warren 801, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114-2696, USA

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr L B Holmes;
holmes.lewis@mgh.harvard.edu

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Antiepileptic medication in pregnancy

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Keywords: epilepsy; anticonvulsant medication; teratogenic effects

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Exposure to anticonvulsant drugs during pregnancy is one of the most common potentially teratogenic exposures, occurring in 1 in 250 (0.4%) of pregnancies in a recent study in Boston.¹ The teratogenicity of these drugs was first postulated in the 1960s, with a consensus developing in the 1970s that a distinctive anticonvulsant embryopathy was produced. Two theories developed as to the cause: (1) the mother's underlying epilepsy² and (2) the anticonvulsant drug.³

All anticonvulsants marketed up to 1976 have been shown to be teratogenic, with varied manifestations and degrees of severity. Hopefully some of the "new" anticonvulsants marketed in the 1990s, for example, gabapentin (1993), lamotrigine (1994), and topiramate (1996), will be shown not to be teratogenic.

I define a teratogenic effect as any harmful fetal effect from an exposure during pregnancy. Some effects are apparent at birth and others at older ages. The most common abnormalities identified in . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Pennell, P. B. (2003). The importance of monotherapy in pregnancy. Neurology 60: S31-38 [Abstract] [Full Text]