Maternal use of antiepileptic drugs and the risk of major congenital malformations: a joint European prospective study of human teratogenesis associated with maternal epilepsy.

Purpose: To quantify the risks of intrauterine antiepileptic drug (AED) exposure in monotherapy and polytherapy.

Methods: Data from five prospective European studies totaling 1,379 children were pooled and reanalyzed. Data were available for 1,221 children exposed to AED during pregnancy and for 158 children of unexposed control pregnancies.

Rotation properties of multipole moments in atomic sublevel spectroscopy.

The spatial orientation of atomic multipole moments can be observed optically with resonant polarized light. We demonstrate the procedure in the ground state of atomic sodium, using optical pumping to polarize the angular momentum substates. We show how the resulting information can be used to distinguish among signal contributions originating from different multipole moments.

Spina bifida occulta in epilepsy syndromes.

We studied radiographs of the lumbar vertebral column and sacral region for 182 patients with epilepsy for the presence of spina bifida occulta. Spina bifida occulta was twice as common in patients with idiopathic epilepsy as in patients with symptomatic epilepsy and twice as common in patients with idiopathic epilepsy as in the general population. We discuss the relationship between spina bifida occulta and idiopathic epilepsy.

[Relation between spina bifida occulta and various epileptic syndromes].

Radiographs of the lumbar vertebral column and sacral region obtained for 182 epileptic patients after spina bifida occulta were studied. Spina bifida occulta was twice as common in patients with idiopathic epilepsy as in those with symptomatic epilepsy and twice as common as in the normal population. A relationship between spina bifida occulta and idiopathic epilepsy is discussed.