Termination of pregnancy in women with epilepsy - A retrospective single center study.

ABSTRACT

Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are commonly prescribed to women of childbearing age. As 0.3%-0.7% of all pregnancies occur in women with epilepsy (WWE), the effect of recurrent seizures and teratogenicity on pregnancy outcome and the fetus have been widely studied. Most of these studies have focused on live births. A significant number of terminated pregnancies in WWE were ignored in past studies, thus reducing the calculated incidence of congenital malformations and possible influence of AED exposure. We scrutinized the medical records at our medical center for termination of pregnancy (TOP) in WWE for the years 2004-2016. Fifty-eight TOPs occurred in WWE during these years. Reasons for TOP included spontaneous abortions necessitating medical intervention (46.6%), patient's request (31.0%), medically recommended (10.3%), and unknown (12.1%).