Scientists led by Kimford Meador of Stanford University conducted clinical trials and concluded that taking modern antiepileptic drugs—lamotrigine and levetiracetam—during pregnancy does not affect verbal development in children up to age six. The multicenter, prospective, non-randomized trials, part of the MONEAD study, involved 387 women and their children. Of the 298 mothers with epilepsy, 78 percent took these medications, either individually or in combination, during pregnancy. The children's verbal abilities were assessed at an average age of 6.4 years. The results were published in JAMA Neurology.
Verbal skills were found to be no different between women without epilepsy and those taking medications for it (p = 0.64). However, cognitive and behavioral scores in children were significantly higher in both groups if their mothers took folic acid during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
