Women with epilepsy. Reproduction and effects of pregnancy on epilepsy.

Conventional wisdom and prevailing medical practice strongly support the belief that medication should be avoided during pregnancy. For the nearly one million women of childbearing age with epilepsy in the United States this is often difficult, if not impossible, and for many of these women becoming pregnant raises many conflicting issues. Women with epilepsy may face a possible increase in the frequency and severity of seizures, and in generalized tonic-clonic seizures there is a small but increased risk of miscarriage.