Lamictal and pregnancy

Re: Lamictal and pregnancy

Submitted by littlecomb on Tue, 2009-07-28 - 18:58

Hi,

I am a new mom with a newborn just 16 days. I started breastfeeding four days after he was born when I began to have a little bit breastmilk. Then I noticed my baby was very sleepy and would sleep through the night for 8 or 9 hours. Immediately we thought of the possibility of lamictal causing the drowsiness. At day 10 after birth we did a blood test for him and the lamictal level in his body was 4.2. I was on 600mg/day lamictal before pregnancy and 1100mg/day at delivery. Now I am 800mg/day. Lamictal level in my body was 5-7, really close to his. We were recommended by peds not to breastfeed or at least add formula. But my neurologist insisted that it's safe to breastfeed. Since we are still concerned about it, we started formula only 3 days ago and found him much more active and would wake us up in the midnight for hungar. 

Then I read the artical "Concerns regarding lamotrigine and breast-feeding" recommended by bugsbunny(Thank you so much). It said that one important factor was negalected that infant has poor ability to metabolize lamictal, two nursing infants still have the same level of lamictal after two months of birth. For adult, the half life of lamictal is 29 hours. Although not enough systematic data to get a final conclusion yet, it is recommended not to breastfeed.

We continued formula only feeding and will recheck his blood level of lamictal next week to see whether he is able to clear off the drug. I will definitely come back with the results I got. But it is also important to know the drug metabolism is different in every infant and mine may not suit your situation. Some baby has even undetectable drug level vs 4.2 of mine. So I recommend checking the durg level after you deliver and recheck again afterwards whatever feeding you want to do.

Overall, my feeling is breastfeeding should not be encouraged not just because no major health problem being recorded. Long-term effect is hard to tell even if your child is healthy so far. Why give him the drug he does not need and cause you such a big cocern.

Lamictal and Zoloft during pregnancy

Submitted by SilverBrumbyMommy on Sat, 2010-11-13 - 10:23

I read one person being concerned about being on Lamictal and Paxil.  Well, I'm on Lamictal and Zoloft and am 22 weeks pregnant with nothing wrong thus far!  Both meds have the lowest level of risk for birth defects.  So if Paxil isn't working for you, try asking about Zoloft or something else instead.  I'm only taking 400 mg of Lamictal daily along with 3 mg folic acid, and 50 mg Zoloft.  I have to have blood tests done once every month to make sure the Lamictal levels are between 2 and 20 in the blood.  I have only had one seizure my entire life when I was 24 (Nov. 2008) and thankfully none since!  It's now Nov. 2010.  I found out I was photosensitive epileptic and loved the idea one mom had about having her eyes covered during delivery since the hormones are going crazy then and there's no telling what can happen.  I'm also going to be asking about having to take extra vitamin K during the last month or week of pregnancy due to other testimonies on here.  I love that this forum has talked about breastfeeding because I very much want to do that!  My neuro isn't really for trying because of the fear of the affect on the baby.  However, I'll discuss this with my ob-gyn this coming week.  I want to at least try since others on here have been successful and just be aware to watch for excessive sleepiness after my son is born.  I can't promise that I'll make an update here later simply because I'll probably forget.  I sincerely hope I'll be able to breastfeed and be another success story like the other moms!  If not, then formula and goat's milk will be options I go for.  Probably homemade formula, which might be cheaper. Who knows?    Good luck to all the other moms and moms-to-be who find this forum later!  I hope all goes well for everyone!

Re: Lamictal and pregnancy

Submitted by chloech on Mon, 2010-11-15 - 02:20

I was on 300 mg lamictal before i got pregnant. When i was pregnant, my neuro increased my dosage to 600 mg due to seizures. I had about 6 seizures during the pregnancy, which was the most seizures i ever had within 1 year. My neuro also pumped my folic acid dosage to 10mg. The fear of spina bifida and cleft pallete haunted me throughout the entire pregnancy. Luckily my obgyn told me everything is normal and there's no sign of birth defect. My baby was delivered via elective c-section. It was the fear of exhaustion from labor that may cause seizure that made me decided to have c-section instead of natural delivery.

As for breast feeding, both my neuro and pediatrician didn't recommend breast feeding due to the amount of lamotrigine in the breast milk. I did however, breastfed my baby for about 2 weeks for all the colostrum. But then I stopped after 2 weeks because i was intoxicated by the high dosage of Lamictal. It was terrible because i couldn't remember things that i did, had terrible headaches and vomitting non stop. When I told my neuro about the symptoms, he decreased my dosage down to 300 mg. I felt so much better after that, but the fear of having my baby experiencing withdrawal, etc I decided to stop breastfeeding. She is 13 months old now. Very healthy and alert little girl who hit all her milestones early.

Don't be afraid to get pregnant, enjoy it but be more cautious because you may get seizures due to raging hormones (in my case).