Sunday, August 4, 2013

Antiepileptic Drug Pregnancy Registry

I decided that I should practice what I preach, so I signed up for the Antiepileptic Drug Pregnancy Registry.

Basically, this is a study by Mass General that documents women who are on AEDs and are pregnant to see the effects of the medications on unborn children. They come out with this study quarterly. You can check out an example of the results on one of my earliest posts here.

What this study entails is an initial 15-minute conversation to get you introduced to the registry and get some background on your epilepsy history. Then, you are left alone until you are about 7 months pregnant, when they call for a 5 minute conversation to ask how the pregnancy is going and have you had any complications. Last, they contact you about 1 to 2 months after delivery to check on if you've had any seizures and the development of the baby.

I figure for little to no effort, my participation will go towards educating others with up to date information and help future couples make the best medical decisions for their situation and their journey to having children. That makes what I'm doing completely worth it.

If you are interested in participating in the registry, or being a control (person not on AEDs participating to create accurate data), you can check it out here.


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