Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31035821›Full record

ArticleEpilepsy currents

Are Antidepressant Medications Safe for Pregnant Women With Epilepsy? The Signs Point to Yes.

Katherine Noe

Open access · diamondAbstract readComment
In one paragraph

Article in Epilepsy currents. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed, 0 citations in OpenAlex.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Katherine Noe

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The Use of Antidepressant Drugs in Pregnant Women With Epilepsy: A Study From the Australian Pregnancy Register Sivathamboo N, Hitchcock A, Graham J, et al. Epilepsia. 2018;59(9):1696-1704.

objectiveTo study interactions between first-trimester exposure to antidepressant drugs (ADDs) and antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and a history of clinical depression and/or anxiety on pregnancy outcomes and seizure control in pregnant women with epilepsy (WWE).

methodsWe examined data from the Australian Pregnancy Register of Antiepileptic Drugs in Pregnancy, collected from 1999 to 2016. The register is an observational, prospective database, from which this study retrospectively analyzed a cohort. Among the AED-exposed outcomes, comparisons were made among 3 exposure groups: (1) pregnancy outcomes with first-trimester exposure to ADDs, (2) outcomes with mothers diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety but who were not medicated with an ADD, and (3) those with mothers who were not diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety and were not medicating with ADD. Prevalence data were analyzed using Fisher exact test.

resultsA total of 2124 pregnancy outcomes were included in the analysis; 1954 outcomes were exposed to AEDs in utero, whereas 170 were unexposed. Within the group of WWE taking AEDs, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of malformations in infants who were additionally exposed to ADDs (10.2%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.9-16.6), compared to individuals in the non-ADD-medicated depression and/or anxiety group (7.7%, 95% CI: 1.2-14.2), or those without depression or anxiety (6.9%, 95% CI: 5.7-8.1; P = .45). The malformation rates in pregnancy outcomes unexposed to AEDs were also similar in the above groups ( P = .27). In WWE medicated with AEDs and ADDs, the frequency of convulsive seizures ( P = .78), or nonconvulsive seizures ( P = .45) throughout pregnancy, did not differ across comparative groups. SIGNIFICANCE: Comedicating with ADDs in WWE taking AEDs does not appear to confer a significant added teratogenic risk, and it does not affect seizure control.

Identifiers

PMID31035821
PMCPMC6610389
OpenAlexW2944164396

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.