Pregnancy complications and outcomes in women with epilepsy

Mirzaei Fatemeh, Ebrahimi B. Nazanin

Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Afzalipour Hospital, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
Physiology Research Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Afzalipour Hospital, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.

DOI: 10.4236/ojog.2012.23047                

Abstract

Epilepsy is the most common serious neurological disorder. This is prospective study to investigate whether women with epilepsy have an increased risk of fetal and maternal complications during pregnancy. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 50 pregnant women who were presented for delivery at Afzalipour Hospital, Kerman, Iran during 2003 to 2009 were assessed. The groups were compared using the Student’s t-test, and one-way-ANOVA for continuous variables and the chisquare test (or Fisher’s exact test if required) for categorical variables. P values of 0.05 or less were considered statistically significant. All the statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 13 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA) for Windows.In 32 (64%) of cases no fetal complication was found, in 5 cases (10.0%) intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), in 2 cases (4.0%) post-term labor, in 2 cases (4.0%) fetal distress and in 9 cases (18.0%) preterm labor were found. In 15 patients (30.0%) no maternal complication was found; in 2 cases (4.0%) pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH), in 12 cases (24.0%) preterm labor , in 4 cases (8.0%) bleeding, in 14 cases (28.0%) premature rupture of the membranes (PROM) and in 3 cases (6.0%) other complications were detected. Given these findings and previous studies, it seems that epileptic women required more care during pregnancy and the rate of maternal, fetal and obstetrical complications are relatively high among them.

Keywords

Epilepsy; Maternal Complications; Fetal Complications

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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