The absolute risk is small, but Consultant, DMSc, Jakob Christensen from the Department of Clinical Medicine and the Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hospital, is nevertheless worried about significantly increased mortality for pregnant women with epilepsy in Denmark. This needs to be closely monitored, he says.
The risk of dying during pregnancy is negligible for the average Danish woman, but if the woman in question has epilepsy, the probability must be multiplied by five. This is the central result presented in a comprehensive epidemiological study that researchers from Health, Aarhus University, are behind.
The study has just been published in the journal Neurology and shows that out of approximately two million pregnant women – including 12,000 women with epilepsy – a total of 176 women died during their pregnancy. Five of them had epilepsy, which means women with epilepsy are a risk group that we should consider following closer, says one of the researchers behind the study, Jakob Christensen. He is a clinical associate professor, DMSc at the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University and a consultant at the Department of Neurology at Aarhus University Hospital.