Fertility in patients with epilepsy: a population-based study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Several studies have suggested that people with epilepsy have altered fertility, but comparison groups have been imperfect. METHOD: A retrospective cohort study of all live births to 209 incident patients with epilepsy in Iceland from 1960 to 1964 and live births to 418 age- (to the closest day of birth) and gender-matched residents without epilepsy. RESULTS: Incident patients with epilepsy had an average of 2.0 children; the controls also had an average of 2.0 children. When people with idiopathic/cryptogenic epilepsy were compared with controls, there was no difference in number of children or number of partners overall, nor were there differences when stratified by seizure type or age at diagnosis. There was a deficit in the number of children among patients with remote symptomatic epilepsy. This was attributed to a reduced number of offspring of patients with mental retardation (MR) or cerebral palsy (CP) when compared with their controls. CONCLUSION: There is no evidence of altered fertility among people with idiopathic/cryptogenic epilepsy or remote symptomatic epilepsy (other than MR or CP) within this population-based incidence cohort.