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Autism Vox

Pregnant Mothers’ Use of Antiepileptic Drug Linked to Autism

by Kristina Chew, PhD on December 1st, 2008

The UC Davis-M.I.N.D. Institute’s MARBLES study ( Markers of Autism Risk in Babies’ Learning Early Signs) is following some 100 women who have a biological autistic child and who are pregnant, or who are planning on becoming pregnant, to investigate possible biological and environmental agents that children are exposed to prenatally and post-partum. It seems that maternal health during pregnancy—what expecting mothers do or do not do—will remain an area of scrutiny in the search for autism’s causes: A study published in the December Neurology shows that children whose mothers took Epilim, an anti-epileptic drug, during pregnancy were seven times more likely to develop autism, as compared with children whose mothers did not take such a drug, as reported in Reuters. Epilim is known generically as Valproate and is sold as Depakene in the US. Previous studies have reported an association between fetal valproate syndrome and autism.

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POSTED IN: Baby, Cause, Health, Medicine

4 opinions for Pregnant Mothers’ Use of Antiepileptic Drug Linked to Autism

  • Mary (MPJ)
    Dec 1, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    I’d be curious to know if their control group consisted of epileptic mothers who were not taking the drug or if the control group included mothers without epilepsy.

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Dec 2, 2008 at 2:20 am

    From WebMD:

    The children whose mothers were taking valproate alone for epilepsy were seven times more likely to develop autism, compared to children whose mothers did not have epilepsy and were not taking any drug while pregnant, the study shows.

    It also seems that there were three children in the study who were born to women without epilepsy who were not medicated; these children were diagnosed with autism.

  • Navi
    Dec 2, 2008 at 4:13 am

    Very interesting. But it’s not like a woman taking that drug can choose not to take it. But it’s good they are looking into epilepsy and autism. Did they say if any of the kids also had seizure disorders?

  • Marla
    Dec 6, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    M’s biological Grandmother has epilepsy and M’s birthmother has delays due to medication she had in utero. Medications taken during pregnancy was a concern of mine when looking to adopt. Genetics are also way stronger than we were led to believe back then.

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