Congratulations on your successful surgery. I'm sure that was an incredibly challenging time for you.
The sodium valproate is to control seizures, correct? There are some small percentages of problems that can happen while taking this drug. Here's some detailed information from gpnotebook.com:
"Sodium valproate - associated with a 1.5% risk of neural tube defects. This may be attributed in part to its effect in reducing serum folate, itself thought to be protective against neural tube defects.
other abnormalities include:
hypospadias
heart defects
craniofacial and skeletal anomalies
"Developmental delay - there is evidence from two retrospective studies of an association between in-utero exposure to sodium valproate and developmental delay (4)
"Note that reported rates of malformations, especially neural tube defects, skeletal defects, hypospadias and heart defects, are higher in children of mothers who took sodium valproate during pregnancy, especially at high doses, than in the general population (5.7% vs. 1.5%, RR 4.1,95% CI 1.9-8.8)(1)
rates associated with sodium valproate were also higher than where mothers with epilepsy either took no antiepileptic drug (OR 4.0, p=0.039) or were on alternative drugs (e.g. compared with phenytoin, RR 3.7, 95% CI 1.2-11.8; compared with carbamazepine, sodium valproate 6.0% [95% CI 4.4-8.1%] vs. carbamazepine 2.3% [95% CI 1.5-3.6]) (1)."
I know that is somewhat dense material, but basically it's saying that there can be a 1.5% to 5.7% chance of some of those problems when a baby is exposed in utero. I included all the above info so you could print it out and take it to your doctor.
Eptoin is a name for the generic Phenytoin sodium. It also is anti-seizure medicine, yes? It is sometimes considered a Class 1b antiarrhythmic.
Class B drugs are defined as possible: "There have been no adequate, well-controlled studies in women but studies using animals have not found any risk to the fetus, or animal studies have found risk that was not confirmed by adequate studies in pregnant women. Not many adequate studies have been performed in pregnant women, so the first situation (not enough information) usually applies if a medication is assigned to this category."
That definition came from this page of FDA Pregnancy Categories on epilepsy.com:
http://www.epilepsy.com/info/women_pregnancy_fda
They also have an entire page on epilepsy and pregnancy:
http://www.epilepsy.com/info/women_pregnancy
Is this information helpful? The best thing to do is to read this information for yourself and then talk with your doctor about your desire to have another baby. She or he can give you advice on how to most enhance your chances of having a healthy pregnancy and baby. Best of luck, and if you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask us.
Comment Reply
Hi, Anon,
Congratulations on your successful surgery. I'm sure that was an incredibly challenging time for you.
The sodium valproate is to control seizures, correct? There are some small percentages of problems that can happen while taking this drug. Here's some detailed information from gpnotebook.com:
"Sodium valproate - associated with a 1.5% risk of neural tube defects. This may be attributed in part to its effect in reducing serum folate, itself thought to be protective against neural tube defects.
other abnormalities include:
hypospadias
heart defects
craniofacial and skeletal anomalies
"Developmental delay - there is evidence from two retrospective studies of an association between in-utero exposure to sodium valproate and developmental delay (4)
"Note that reported rates of malformations, especially neural tube defects, skeletal defects, hypospadias and heart defects, are higher in children of mothers who took sodium valproate during pregnancy, especially at high doses, than in the general population (5.7% vs. 1.5%, RR 4.1,95% CI 1.9-8.8)(1)
rates associated with sodium valproate were also higher than where mothers with epilepsy either took no antiepileptic drug (OR 4.0, p=0.039) or were on alternative drugs (e.g. compared with phenytoin, RR 3.7, 95% CI 1.2-11.8; compared with carbamazepine, sodium valproate 6.0% [95% CI 4.4-8.1%] vs. carbamazepine 2.3% [95% CI 1.5-3.6]) (1)."
I know that is somewhat dense material, but basically it's saying that there can be a 1.5% to 5.7% chance of some of those problems when a baby is exposed in utero. I included all the above info so you could print it out and take it to your doctor.
Eptoin is a name for the generic Phenytoin sodium. It also is anti-seizure medicine, yes? It is sometimes considered a Class 1b antiarrhythmic.
Class B drugs are defined as possible: "There have been no adequate, well-controlled studies in women but studies using animals have not found any risk to the fetus, or animal studies have found risk that was not confirmed by adequate studies in pregnant women. Not many adequate studies have been performed in pregnant women, so the first situation (not enough information) usually applies if a medication is assigned to this category."
That definition came from this page of FDA Pregnancy Categories on epilepsy.com:
http://www.epilepsy.com/info/women_pregnancy_fda
They also have an entire page on epilepsy and pregnancy:
http://www.epilepsy.com/info/women_pregnancy
Is this information helpful? The best thing to do is to read this information for yourself and then talk with your doctor about your desire to have another baby. She or he can give you advice on how to most enhance your chances of having a healthy pregnancy and baby. Best of luck, and if you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask us.
October 22, 2009 - 6:52amThis Comment
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