According to the San Francisco Gate, anticonvulsant medication such as Depakote are being increasingly linked to birth defects. Recent studies have found that victims of birth defects may have been exposed to anticonvulsants in the uterus. Mothers may have been prescribed Depakote which has the risk of potentially causing life-long conditions such as spina bifida, heart malformations or oral cleft birth defects. Depakote is a widely used anticonvulsant drug on the market, prescribed to women suffering from epilepsy and migraine headaches. A report entitled The Teratogenicity of Anticonvulsant Drugs done by the New England Journal of Medicine suggests a connection between Depakote use and the development of birth defects among infants exposed to the drug during pregnancy. The Food and Drug Administration supports these findings and published its own report Birth Defects Related to Depakote and Similar Drugs. The report is a compilation of studies conducted on adverse effects of…
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Anticonvulsant Medication Depakote Associated With Serious Birth Defects
April 28, 2011Study Finds Decline in Infant Cerebral Palsy
April 26, 2011According to Seedol, a study conducted by a team of researchers in the Netherlands suggests a decline in the number of children diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The study findings were published in the journal of Pediatrics concluded that promising developments have been made in recent years in terms of cerebral palsy diagnosis and their severity on infants born prematurely. The study conducted by the University Medical Center Utrecht examined 3,000 children born prematurely, a group commonly susceptible to being diagnosed with cerebral palsy, over a 15-year period from 1990 to 2005. The researchers found that 6.5 percent of the infants born between 1990 and 1993 were diagnosed with the birth injury, while only 2.2 percent of infants born between 2002 and 2005 received a similar diagnosis. The decline could be attributed to technological and medical advances, study authors suggest. Advances in perinatal and neonatal care may have contributed to the…
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Study Finds Most Americans Take Vitamins and Dietary Supplements
April 22, 2011According to Associated Press, about half of U.S. adults take vitamins and other dietary supplements, with percentages keeping steady for much of the past decade. A new government data shows that a booming number of older women are taking calcium. Federal officials released figures showing the use of dietary supplements has grown since the early 1990s, the usage levels leveled off in 2003 through 2008. About half of adults 20 and older take at least one dietary supplement a day. The biggest rise was seen in calcium. Two thirds of women 60 and older are taking calcium each day, up 28 percent since 1990. Baby boomers may be contributing to these figures, experts say. Many women have also been encouraged to take calcium to protect against female health issues during menopause including osteoporosis. Federal officials conducted surveys in 1988-1994 and 2003-2008 and asked participants to list what supplements they took….
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