Maternal seizure disorder, outcome of pregnancy, and neurologic abnormalities in the children.

Among 45,000 pregnant women, 21.4 per 1000 (2.1%) reported at least one seizure before or during pregnancy. During the study pregnancy, 4.4 per 1000 had a noneclamptic seizure, and another 4.5 per 1000 had one in the 5 years preceding the study. Stillbirth, microcephaly, mental retardation, and nonfebrile seizure disorders occurred with heightened frequency in the offspring of women with seizure disorders; low birthweight, neonatal seizures, and first-year deaths were not more common. Approximately 80% of the women with seizure disorders had infants with none of the unfavorable outcomes studied. The observational nature of this and other clinical studies on this topic makes it difficult to evaluate the role of medical therapy in the outcome.