Diagnosis of Pregnant Women with Seizures at Tikur Anbessa Hospital

Abstract

Information is yet scanty concerning current antiepileptic drugs prescribing patterns for women of childbearing age with epilepsy. Most women with epilepsy can give birth to perfectly healthy children after uneventful pregnancies. Best approach to management of epilepsy in pregnancy requires knowledge of the teratogenic effects of antiepileptic drugs, of the risks with uncontrolled seizures. Understanding the effects of pregnancy on seizure control and of gestational effects on antiepileptic drugs disposition is useful in early clinical diagnosis and patient management systems. We evaluated utilization of antiepileptic drugs among women of childbearing age against pre-set standards in epilepsy clinic of Tikur Anbessa Special and Referral Hospital from May 2017 to May 2018. The mean age of the women were 24.92± 6.54, where majority 217 (56.5%) of them aged between 15-25. Eighty-five (22.1%) of the women diagnosed with epilepsy were found to be pregnant, among them 20(5.2%) were breast-feeding. Generalized tonic clonic seizure (62.8%) was found to be the commonest seizure type diagnosed followed by unidentified or uncategorized seizures (16.7%), focal seizures (11.5%), and complex partial seizures (6.3%). Among the variety of anti-epileptic drug regimen or combinations used to treat epilepsy in 384 mothers, monotherapy 259 (67.4%) was the commonest drug regimen prescribed followed by dual therapy 97 (25.3%), and polytherapy 28 (7.3%). We here concluded that Valproic acid 44(51.8%) followed by phenytoin 36(42.4%) and phenobarbital 17(20%) were commonly given for breast-feeding women at Tikur Anbessa hospital.