Folate Supplements
from information available at "www.pslgroup.com/dg/F93DA.htm"
A recent study of 63 offspring of 52 Canadian women, presented at the American Academy of Neurology, seems to show that pregnant women taking sodium valproate may risk bearing children with physical deformities, even if taking folate supplements. Of the children born to mothers taking both valproate and folate, 5% were born with neural tube defects, 10% had major birth defects, and 12% had minor birth defects. The risk rose to 22% for women taking both valproate and carbamazepine.
These results are disturbing considering that folate supplements are regularly recommended during pregnancy to minimize the risk of neural tube defects.
Conducted by Dr. Susan Duncan (a consultant neurologist based in Manchester, England) while at the Montreal Neurological Hospital, this study involved only Canadian women taking valproate, as part of a global probe of birth defects in the children of 960 women taking AEDs.
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