Comments on: Pregnant Mothers’ Use of Antiepileptic Drug Linked to Autism

By: Marla

Marla — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:28:24 +0000

M’s biological Grandmother has epilepsy and M’s birthmother has delays due to medication she had in utero. Medications taken during pregnancy was a concern of mine when looking to adopt. Genetics are also way stronger than we were led to believe back then.

By: Navi

Navi — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:13:19 +0000

Very interesting. But it’s not like a woman taking that drug can choose not to take it. But it’s good they are looking into epilepsy and autism. Did they say if any of the kids also had seizure disorders?

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:20:10 +0000

From WebMD:

The children whose mothers were taking valproate alone for epilepsy were seven times more likely to develop autism, compared to children whose mothers did not have epilepsy and were not taking any drug while pregnant, the study shows.

It also seems that there were three children in the study who were born to women without epilepsy who were not medicated; these children were diagnosed with autism.

By: Mary (MPJ)

Mary (MPJ) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:54:27 +0000

I’d be curious to know if their control group consisted of epileptic mothers who were not taking the drug or if the control group included mothers without epilepsy.