Patients
From Feb 2010 to Dec 2018, consecutive cases of WWE with pregnancy
registered at Xijing Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. Patients
who fulfilled the following criteria were excluded from the study: a)
WWE developing epilepsy during or after pregnancy, b) WWE who were not
followed up as long as one year after delivery at the last follow-up
(May 2019), c) WWE who were lost in follow-up, d) patients whose data
were incomplete, and e) WWE exposed
to other teratogenic substances. All the enrolled WWE were divided into
two groups: planned-pregnancy group and unplanned-pregnancy group.
Planned pregnancy was defined as
preconception counseling with epileptologists in a face-to-face manner
to optimize the type and dose of AEDs and folic acid supplementation and
regularly followed up according to changes in clinical status. The
unplanned-pregnancy group contained all the pregnancies not included in
the planned-pregnancy group, such as the WWE with unexpected
pregnancies, who thus had no preconception counseling, the WWE who
consulted epileptologists after conception, or the WWE who could not be
regularly followed up during pregnancy.