Use of an epilepsy drug during pregnancy can affect the child's intelligence levels, researchers warn.
Epilepsy is a brain disorder and a person suffering from the disorder is at a high risk of experiencing frequent seizures.
According to professor Kimford Meador and colleagues from Emory University in the U.S., pregnant women who follow the anti-epileptic medication valproate are at higher risks of giving birth to children with lower IQ, compared to others.
The study included more than 300 pregnant women in the U.K. and U.S. Participants reported taking different drugs like valproate, carbamazepine, lamotrigine, or phenytoin to treat epilepsy.
Researchers followed the participants' children until age six and found the use of valproate in pregnancy bringing down their IQ levels by seven to 10 points, compared to children of mothers who took other medicines. Apart from that, the drug was also shown to leave a negative impact on the verbal and memory abilities of children.
Investigators found the IQ levels changing with different doses of the valproate drug - a reduction in the IQ levels with each increase in the drug dose.
However, the impact is not permanent and as the kids grow up, their IQ levels may improve, researchers say. Another solution is taking a folic acid supplementation during pregnancy. According to the researchers, folic acid helps in improving the children's IQ scores.
This is not the first study to show the hidden risks associated with valproate use during pregnancy. A study published in 2009 found the drug lowering children's IQ at three years, prompting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to spread awareness about the risks.
"These results build on our earlier work to show that valproate usage during pregnancy has a significant negative effect on children's IQ, which lasts beyond their earliest years. IQ at age six is strongly predictive of adult IQ and school performance, so our research suggests that valproate use during pregnancy is likely to have long-term negative effects on a child's IQ and other cognitive abilities," Meador said in a news release.
"For many antiepileptic drugs, there is simply no research available on their effects on women and their children during pregnancy, and given that many women do not have the option of stopping medication during pregnancy, more research in this area is urgently needed."
The findings of the study have been published in Lancet Neurology.
