Outcome of Pregnancies Complicated by Epilepsy in Tasmania 1981–1988

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Epilepsy and asthma are the neglected major medical diseases of pregnancy challenging in importance (prevalence, maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity) essential hypertension, chronic renal disease and diabetes. This issue contains 2 complementary papers on epilepsy and pregnancy: the large Tasmanian community series confirms the significant increase in fetal abnormalities and other pregnancy complications; the South Australian teaching hospital series confirms the association with fetal malformations and antenatal complications and also discusses the medical management of epilepsy in pregnancy and how the 2 conditions influence each other. Summary: Epilepsy in pregnancy is associated with an adverse pregnancy outcome. In 347 pregnancies in an 8‐year retrospective study of all private and public patients in Tasmania from 1981 to 1988, epilepsy was found to be associated with an increased risk of hypertension (21%), antepartum haemorrhage (4.9%), postpartum haemorrhage (11.2%), fetal abnormality (3.5%) and perinatal mortality (2.3%).