Worried mommy

[Epileptic_mom]

Hi, I've done some research on eclampsia and pre-eclampsia and found some pretty scary stuff. I am 24 years old, living with epilepsy and I am pregnant with my second child.

During my first pregnancy (I was 18) everything went reaaallly well, no seizures, no cravings, no stretchmarks, no morning sickness... it was a breeze. My son was small at birth and had very poor lungs but luckily he got better fast.

I am now 19 weeks pregnant with his sister and I struggle a lot. I get sick even for the smell of any spice and red meat and pasta to name a few. I suffer from terrible migraines and end up in the OR regularly for pain reliever and I feel short of breath. Also, I suddenly have irregular hypertension. I had a seizure 2 days ago therefore my muscle are still a bit stiff and sore not to mention the bruising on my right shoulder and hip as I fell to the floor.

Neither my gynecologist or neurologist wants to believe me but I worry that I might have developed eclampsia or pre-eclampsia because I've never had hypertension and before this week, I was seizure free for almost 10 months which is wonderful. I would usually get at least 1 seizure per month.

What is wrong with me? I'm worried that my baby's life might be in danger or that she may have developed a chronic illness because of lack of oxygen by the placenta. Can anyone who had eclampsia tell me if your baby was born healthy and has no serious illnesses such as down syndrome, epilepsy, autism etc.

[AmyBadd]

I was very scared about eclampsia during my pregnancy as I had a cousin who died of it, but that is extremely rare. It was also in her third pregnancy and she had given birth to two healthy babies beforehand, even though she had eclampsia during those pregnancies too.

Pre-eclampsia is fairly common. I spoke to a lot of women who had it during my pregnancy and they just had to have extra check-ups like I did because of my epilepsy.

Because I take epilim (sodium valproate) I went a low dose during my pregnancy and towards the end when I was really tired I had a couple of seizures. My neurologist told me there wasn't really anything to worry about unless I had regular or very long seizures, as this is when the baby may be deprived of oxygen.

Anyway he is now 6 months old and very healthy.

Try not to worry too much and just take all the advice you can from your doctors. I would recommend taking in a list of questions to ask them when you go to see them asi often found I'd come out and forgotten something because they rush you so much.

Hope everyone is ok

Amy xx