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21 Feb 2008
Premature or underweight babies who have experienced impaired growth in the womb could be prone to epilepsy in their infancy, a study suggests.
Researchers based at the University of Aarhus in Denmark studied 1.4 million babies born between 1979 and 2002 up to 24-years-old.
They concluded that the rate of epilepsy diagnosis increased according to decreased gestational age and birth weight, with the association becoming weaker as the age of epilepsy diagnosis increased.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that epilepsy in a baby's first 12 months was over five-times more frequent in children born at 22 to 32 weeks, compared with those born at 39 to 41 weeks.
Epilepsy risk was also five times higher in newborns who weighed less than two kg, compared to those who weighed three to 3.9kg
"The association of low birth weight and short gestational age with the risk of epilepsy was particularly strong within the first five years of life," the report's authors wrote.
"Perhaps because the immature brain is more susceptible to seizures when exposed to risk factors operating during prenatal life than the mature brain is."
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