Introductory Message from the Committee Chair

Gregory L. Barkley, MD
Chair, Epilepsy Foundation
Professional Advisory Board

Millions of American women of child bearing age take anticonvulsant drugs for central and peripheral nervous system problems other than epilepsy such as migraine, bipolar disorder, neuropathy, and other mood and pain disorders. These women face difficult choices between medical need and potential risk to themselves and their unborn child. The Epilepsy Foundation, guided by a distinguished committee of neurological experts, is mounting a campaign to raise awareness among women and their physicians regarding the risks and benefits of these widely-prescribed medications, and to propose steps to help women reduce the associated risks to themselves and their unborn child through a generous unrestricted educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline.

On June 21, 2005, the Epilepsy Foundation held its first Women's Health Forum on Anticonvulsants and Pregnancy. This forum brought together federal agencies and national voluntary health agencies committed to improving healthcare for women. The forum provided a unique opportunity to draw on the medical expertise of our distinguished panel in support of our work in the service of women’s health. Taken together, these discussions formed the basis of the Foundation’s Call to Action Statement on women and anticonvulsants. This document marshals our collective public health expertise and will provide us all with a valuable tool to improve the health of women in America.

I also wish to thank our committee members for their efforts on this project: Cynthia Harden, MD, from the New York-Cornell Medical Center Comprehensive Epilepsy Center; Lewis B. Holmes, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Genetics and Teratology Unit, Pediatric Services, Massachusetts General Hospital; Kimford J. Meador, MD, Melvin Greer Professor of Neurology, University of Florida; Page B. Pennell, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology, and Director, Emory Epilepsy Program, Emory University School of Medicine; and Blanca Vazquez, MD, Director of Clinical Trials, New York University Medical Center.

-- Gregory L. Barkley, MD