(Press-News.org) Prenatal exposure to antiepileptic medications was associated with an increased risk of impaired fine motor skills (small muscle movements) in children at age 6 months, but breastfeeding by women taking the medications was not associated with any harmful effects on child development at ages 6 to 36 months, according to a report published by JAMA Neurology, a JAMA Network publication.
Few studies have examined development during the first months of life of children of mothers with epilepsy, according to background in the study by Gyri Veiby, M.D., of the University of Bergen, Norway, and colleagues.
Researchers used data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study from 1999 to 2009, in which mothers reported children's motor and social skills, language and behavior at 6, 18 and 36 months of age. Women also provided information on breastfeeding during the first year.
Exposure to antiepileptic drugs during pregnancy was reported in 223 children, mostly to a single drug (n=182).
At age 6 months, a higher proportion of infants whose mothers took antiepileptic drugs had impaired fine motor skills compared to the reference group (11.5 percent vs. 4.8 percent). The use of multiple antiepileptic medications was associated with impaired fine motor and social skills, according to the study results.
Breastfeeding by mothers using antiepileptic drugs was not associated with adverse development at ages 6 to 36 months in nursing children, according to the study.
"Women with epilepsy should be encouraged to breastfeed their children irrespective of antiepileptic medication use," the study concludes.
(JAMA Neurol. Published online September 23, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2013.4290. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: Authors made conflict of interest disclosures. This work was supported by the Norwegian Association for Epilepsy. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Editorial: Breastfeeding in Women with Epilepsy
In an editorial, Paul C. Van Ness, M.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, writes: "Pregnant women with epilepsy often ask whether they will be able to breastfeed. Many have been given conflicting advice when there were scant data to answer the question."
"This study adds additional evidence that long-term breastfeeding is safe and perhaps even beneficial to infants of mothers taking AEDs [antiepileptic drugs]," Van Ness continues.
"This should be an important area of discussion with any woman of childbearing potential well in advance of pregnancy using the best available information. Thus, a woman should take folic acid supplements, received AED monotherapy whenever possible, and take the lowest effective dose of medication," the editorial concludes.
(JAMA Neurol. Published online September 23, 2013. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2013.4348. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
### END
Prenatal exposure to antiepileptic drugs associated with impaired fine motor skills
2013-09-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Wind and rain belts to shift north as planet warms, says study
2013-09-24
As humans continue to heat the planet, a northward shift of Earth's wind and rain belts could make a broad swath of regions drier, including the Middle East, American West and Amazonia, while making Monsoon Asia and equatorial Africa wetter, says a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study authors base their prediction on the warming that brought Earth out of the last ice age, some 15,000 years ago. As the North Atlantic Ocean began to churn more vigorously, it melted Arctic sea ice, setting up a temperature contrast with the southern hemisphere ...
Marriage associated with better cancer outcomes, study finds
2013-09-24
BOSTON—People who are married when diagnosed with cancer live longer than those who are not, report researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Married patients also tended to have cancers diagnosed at an earlier stage – when it is often more successfully treated – and to receive more appropriate treatment.
The study's findings will be published online by the Journal of Clinical Oncology on Sept. 23.
"Our data suggests that marriage can have a significant health impact for patients with cancer, and this was consistent among every cancer ...
Global warming is likely to increase severe thunderstorm conditions in US, Stanford research finds
2013-09-24
In 2012, 11 weather disasters in the United States crossed the billion-dollar threshold in economic losses. Seven of those events were related to severe thunderstorms.
New climate analyses led by Stanford scientists indicate that global warming is likely to cause a robust increase in the conditions that produce these types of storms across much of the country over the next century.
Severe thunderstorms are one of the primary causes of catastrophic losses in the United States and often exhibit the conditions that generate heavy rainfall, damaging winds, hail and tornadoes.
Sparse ...
Siberian hamsters show what helps make seasonal clocks tick
2013-09-24
Many animals, including humans, have internal clocks and calendars to help them regulate behavior, physiological functions and biological processes. Although scientists have extensively studied the timekeeping mechanisms that inform daily functions (circadian rhythms), they know very little about the timekeeping mechanisms that inform seasonal functions.
New research to be published this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows, for the first time, that this measurement of seasonal time has an epigenetic component. ...
Large European study suggests men with type 1 diabetes are better at blood sugar control than women
2013-09-24
Men with type 1 diabetes appear to be better at blood sugar control than women, but there is no significant difference in blood sugar control between boys and girls. These are the findings of new research presented at this week's annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Barcelona, Spain. The research is by Professor Sarah Wild, University of Edinburgh, UK, and colleagues from the International quality of care for type 1 diabetes group.
Since there are limited data showing differences in blood sugar control in type 1 diabetes between ...
Non-precious metal catalysts outperforming Pt-based one by UNIST research team
2013-09-24
Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), and Brookhaven National Laboratory, have discovered a new family of non-precious metal catalysts. These catalysts exhibit better performance than platinum in oxygen-reduction reaction (ORR) only with 10 % of the production cost of a platinum catalyst.
The finding, described in Nature's Scientific Reports (published online on Step. 23, 2013), provides an important step towards circumventing the biggest obstacle to widespread- commercialization of fuel ...
Managed care reduces hospitalizations in nursing home residents with advanced dementia
2013-09-24
BOSTON – Nursing home residents with advanced dementia commonly experience burdensome, costly interventions that do not improve their quality of life or extend their survival. Now a new study suggests that providing intensive primary care services may result in less burdensome and less costly care for these terminally ill residents.
Led by researchers at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, New York University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the study appears in ...
'Reassuring' findings released in national study of influenza vaccine safety in pregnancy
2013-09-24
SAN DIEGO, CA – Researchers from Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center and UC San Diego, in collaboration with the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI), have found 'reassuring' evidence of the H1N1 influenza vaccine's safety during pregnancy. The national study, which was launched shortly after the pandemic H1N1 influenza outbreak of 2009 and funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), will be summarized in two companion papers published online this month in the journal, ...
No detectable association between frequency of marijuana use and health or healthcare utilization
2013-09-24
(Boston)--Researchers from Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found frequency of marijuana use was not significantly associated with health services utilization or health status. These findings currently appear online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
As marijuana's legal status changes across the US, its impact on health has become of great interest. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, yet its impact on health and healthcare utilization has not been studied extensively.
The researchers studied ...
Pesticide regulation in California is flawed, UCLA report says
2013-09-24
Approximately 30 million pounds of fumigant pesticides are used each year on soil that yields valuable California crops— strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and the like — in an attempt to control pests. Responsibility for the safety of pesticides must be evaluated and approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation in a process known as registration.
A new report issued by UCLA's Sustainable Technology and Policy Program, a joint program of the Fielding School of Public Health and the School of Law, shows that in at least one case, the system failed by approving ...