The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7500 p531
3 May 2008

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Mothers’ antiepilepsy drugs do not harm development of breastfed babies’ brains

Breastfed babies whose mothers are taking certain antiepilepsy drugs do not suffer harmful effects in their cognitive development, early findings from a new study suggest.

Researchers tested the cognitive development of 187 two-year-old children whose mothers were taking lamotrigine, carbamazepine, phenytoin or valproate. Children who were breastfed (41 per cent) had higher cognitive scores than children who were bottle-fed (98.1 versus 89.5; P=0.0012) and this trend was consistent for each drug, say the researchers.

However, the trend became non-significant when adjusting for maternal IQ.

The data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology held in Chicago in April 2008.