According to a report released by British researchers in the July 22 issue of the journal Neurology, pregnant women who take an epilepsy drug called topiramate alone or associated with other epilepsy medicines may be more predisposed to birth defects.

Topiramate, put up for sale by Johnson & Johnson under the brand name Topamax, is a widespread anti-seizure medication taken by many people who suffer from epilepsy. Moreover, it is also employed to cure migraine headaches. Numerous similar drugs also augment the risk of birth defects, but until this study, the connection between birth defects and topiramate had not been intensely analyzed.

Lead researcher John Craig, of the Royal Group of Hospitals in Belfast, Northern Ireland, stated in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology that more research was still necessary in order to authenticate the conclusions, as the study had not been expanded.

The researchers carried out the investigations on women who had become pregnant while using topiramate alone or in combination with other epilepsy drugs. John Craig’s team discovered that 4.8 percent of the babies that had been born suffered from severe birth defects. Three of the infants’ mothers were taking only topiramate, while 13 were taking topiramate in addition to other epilepsy drugs. Four of the babies had cleft palettes or cleft lips. The rate is 11 times higher than one would expect in the cases of women who do not take the drug, researchers said. Furthermore, the researchers informed that four of the male infants had genital defects. Two of these babies were reported to have “major defects”, a rate 14 times higher than usual, according to specialists.

The frequency of birth defects among women using topiramate was higher than the rate of birth defects in the general population, which usually oscillates between 1 percent and 2.5 percent. In addition to this, more birth defects were registered among women taking topiramate along with the epilepsy drug valproate weighed against women taking topiramate a different epilepsy drug.