Use of anticonvulsants in eclampsia and pre-eclampsia: survey of obstetricians in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

BMJ 1998;316:975-976 ( 28 March )

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Use of anticonvulsants in eclampsia and pre-eclampsia: survey of obstetricians in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

A Metin Gülmezoglu, research fellow, Lelia Duley, senior research fellow.

National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6HE

Correspondence to: Dr A M Gülmezoglu, United Kingdom Cochrane Centre, NHS Research and Development Programme, Summertown Pavilion, Oxford OX2 7LG mgulmezoglu@cochrane.co.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Pre-eclampsia is a multisystem disorder associated with hypertension and proteinuria and is a fairly common complication ofpregnancy. Eclampsia, the occurrence of fits with pre-eclampsia,is rare, but both conditions can have serious consequences forthe mother and infant. Anticonvulsants are given to women witheclampsia to prevent further fits and to women with pre-eclampsiato prevent the first fit, thereby improving the outcome for motherand infant. Clinical practice, however, varies greatly worldwide.In the United Kingdom diazepam has been popular since the 1970sand phenytoin since the early 1990s, but the use of magnesiumsulphate remains uncommon. ¹ ² Magnesium sulphate has beenwidely used for decades in the United States and has recentlybeen acknowledged as the preferred anticonvulsant for women witheclampsia.³ There is little evidence to support or refute theuse of anticonvulsants in women with pre-eclampsia.⁴ We conducteda survey to determine the current use of . . . [Full text of this article]

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