A first-of-kind study was presented to members of the American Academy of Neurology attending that group’s 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting, running from April 12 through 19, in Chicago.  The study measured negative cognitive impact of an infant when his or her mother was breastfeeding and taking certain medications to control epileptic seizures.

The drugs in question - carbamazepine, lamotrigine, phenytoin, and valproate - were suspected of interfering with the nursing child’s cognitive development.  To prove or disprove that theory, researchers tested cognitive skills of 187 children, all two years old, whose mothers were taking any one of these four drugs.  Seventy-seven (41%) of the mothers breastfed their children.

The findings of the study reveal that breastfed children tested higher than those not breastfed, averaging a score of 98.1 on cognitive testing whereas children who had not been breastfed had an average score of 89.5.  Despite the difference in scores, researchers feel the difference is more related to the mother’s IQ, higher in this case in mothers who breastfed as compared to those who did not.

Kimford Meador, MD, Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and the University of Florida, Gainesville, says that although the current study doesn’t link a mother’s anti-epilepsy medications to negative cognitive abilities in breastfed babies, caution is advised nevertheless because of the limitations of this particular study.

Some, but not every, drug prescribed to control epilepsy cause cellular death in developing brains.  Beta estradiol, a sex hormone the mother produces, works as a protective mechanism, blocking cellular death in utero.  Once born, a baby is no longer protected by its mother’s beta estradiol and some in the scientific community feared cellular death would be more likely when a nursing mother also took medication to control seizures.  This study revealed no impaired cognitive function in the babies at all.

Further study is warranted, however, for the safety of other anti-seizure drugs and for such drugs taken in combination, according to Meador.

All mothers enrolled in the current study did so during pregnancy.   The current study is part of a long-term study in which the ultimate goal is to see how 6-year-old children fared when their mothers took anti-epilepsy drugs during pregnancy.

Source: American Academy of Neurology