Can a female patient with epilepsy have children?

Epilepsy is a disease caused by brain lesions. It is indeed difficult to completely cure this disease. Once an epileptic patient develops an attack, it will have a relatively obvious impact on the health of the body. If the patient is a woman, it is best not to have children during the onset of the disease, because the patient needs to take medication during treatment. These drugs will have adverse effects on fertility and may even cause deformities in the child. Let's take a look at this aspect.

Can a female patient with epilepsy have children?

1. The best time to get pregnant: Epilepsy has been well controlled for 2-5 years, and multiple electroencephalograms have been found to have epileptic discharges, and multiple examinations have been found to have abnormal nervous system structures. You can appropriately reduce or stop medication before getting pregnant;

2. When anti-epileptic drugs have to be used, epileptic seizures should be controlled to a minimum at least in the first six months of pregnancy, and the dosage of the drug should be reduced from multiple doses to a single dose as much as possible to maintain the lowest dose that can control epileptic seizures.

3. Take vitamin B1 and folic acid 3 months before pregnancy and 3 months after finding out about the pregnancy.

4. Regular follow-up should be performed throughout the pregnancy, blood drug concentrations should be measured regularly, and prenatal examinations should be performed regularly, including B-ultrasound examinations.

The main reason why women with epilepsy cannot have children

1. Genetics

Based on the cause, epilepsy can be divided into primary epilepsy and secondary epilepsy. Among primary epilepsy, a small portion is hereditary. For example, children who have febrile convulsions in childhood are more likely to develop epilepsy in adulthood than normal people. Secondary epilepsy, such as epilepsy that occurs after brain trauma, brain tumor, and encephalitis, is not hereditary. Therefore, the key to determining whether epilepsy is hereditary is to understand the family history and cause of the disease. If there have been cases in the previous generation or peers in the family, the possibility of inheritance is greater. If a clear cause of epilepsy is found, the probability of inheritance is low.

2. Pregnancy-induced epileptic seizures

The two influence each other. On the one hand, the probability of epileptic seizures after pregnancy will increase accordingly; on the other hand, epileptic seizures will increase the risk of pregnancy. Not only will the complications during pregnancy increase, but if the epileptic seizure lasts for a long time, especially a major seizure or status epilepticus, it will cause fetal intrauterine hypoxia, and in severe cases, lead to intrauterine fetal death, etc., which will have a serious impact on both pregnant women and fetuses.

3. Impact on the fetus

There are two other main factors that affect the fetus: one is the epileptic seizure itself, and the other is anti-epileptic drugs. This is an issue that women with epilepsy must consider when they want to become pregnant and have children. Some mothers with epilepsy only consider that taking medicine is not good for their children, and blindly reduce or stop taking medicine, which leads to frequent epileptic seizures and causes greater harm to the fetus. Although side effects of drugs exist, under the guidance of a doctor, the teratogenicity of anti-epileptic drugs can be avoided as much as possible by adjusting the type and dosage of drugs.