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Pregnancy can be challenging in itself, but when mothers with their own health problems are faced with balancing their own health concerns with the health of their fetuses, the challenge becomes even more difficult. It is almost always a balancing act: a mother needs to take care of herself, and many times, her other children, while doing what’s best for her growing baby.

Women with added health concerns during pregnancy usually face more prenatal testing than mothers without such complications. There are more parties involved throughout the pregnancy: the expecting couple or woman, her obstetrician, a perinatoligist (or group) and any other doctors who care for the mother’s given health condition.

For epileptic mothers, pregnancy can be complicated: it is known that a mother’s seizures can be harmful to their fetuses, thus it is unlikely that these women can or should discontinue taking their medications. While there has already been promising research regarding taking seizure meds during pregnancy, more recent research has revealed some promising news for epileptic mothers who wish to breastfeed.

Early results of a landmark study have shown that it may be safe for women taking anti-epileptic drugs to breastfeed. Results of earlier studies suggest that pregnant women’s sex hormones protect their fetuses from being negatively impacted by certain seizure medications.

The latest findings are based on an ongoing study of the cognitive abilities of 187 two-year old children whose mothers took one of four drugs for the treatment of epilepsy: Tegretol, Lamictal, Dilantin or Depakote. 41% of the children were breastfed. The breastfed children scored higher on the Mental Development Index (MDI) test than those who were not breastfed, regardless of the seizure medication. The statistic was not statistically significant, however, when factoring in the mother’s IQ.

Researchers do warn that more research is needed in order to confirm their findings. The study is part of an ongoing investigation of how seizure medications during pregnancy affect later cognitive abilities. Mothers are enrolled during pregnancy and researchers plan to reevaluate each child again at ages 3, 4 ½ and 6.

Tags: Breastfeeding, epilepsy, medication, Pregnancy