THE RISKS OF PREGNANCY IN EPILEPTIC WOMEN: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Pregnancy is a unique and special moment in a woman's life, and women who have epilepsy and undergo treatment for such a disease go through moments of doubt and insecurity when they consider getting pregnant. The ignorance that one has about the real risks by which the fetus is exposed during pregnancy in epileptic mothers is the main obstacle. The goal of this review was to analyze the main risks of an epileptic woman getting pregnant. A search was performed on National Library of Medicine (PubMed) and Portal Regional da Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) platforms with the descriptors "epileptic", "pregnancy" and "risk", articles published in the last 10 years (2012-2022) were used as inclusion criteria; in English and Portuguese; the articles whose studies were of the controlled clinical trial type or observational study and exclusion criteria articles that did not have a clear definition of theoretical and thematic basis in tune to the objectives of the study and at the end were selected a total of 22 scientific articles. Through the analyzed studies it was observed that the main risks were congenital malformations and changes in cognitive development. In conclusion, it is important that health professionals know these risks so that they can provide the best possible information support to these epileptic women who intend to become pregnant.