TY - JOUR
T1 - Counseling Reproductive-Age Youth With Epilepsy
T2 - Literature Review and Expert Opinion From the Epilepsy in the Child-Bearing Ages Through Menopause Consortium
AU - Clements, Marie E.
AU - Briscoe, Christina
AU - Curcio, Angela M.
AU - Douglass, Laurie M.
AU - Kassiri, Janani
AU - Liu, Lynn C.
AU - Mathias, Sally V.
AU - Moore-Hill, Debra T.
AU - Nalluri, Deepthi
AU - Nath, Audrey
AU - Romeu, Amanda M.
AU - Syed, Tahniat
AU - Vinarsky, Victoria
AU - Wiener, Susan
AU - Yang, Qian Zhou Jo Jo
AU - Betstadt, Sarah J.
AU - Harrison, Elizabeth I.
AU - Kulkarni, Neil
AU - Puntambekar, Preeti
AU - Samanta, Debopam
AU - Singla, Laveena
AU - Voinescu, P. Emanuela
AU - Kirkpatrick, Laura
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Authors
PY - 2026/2
Y1 - 2026/2
N2 - Epilepsy in the Child-Bearing Ages through Menopause is an international consortium of clinicians dedicated to improving the health of women with epilepsy across the lifespan. Epilepsy in the Child-Bearing Ages through Menopause's Adolescent and Young Adult Committee addresses quality of care for female youth with epilepsy. The Committee developed a literature review and expert opinion guidance for child neurologists on performing optimal counseling about epilepsy and reproductive health for female youth with epilepsy. To do so, we identified and voted on key topics essential for this counseling, then conducted comprehensive literature reviews for each topic, iteratively developed key statements about counseling content and style for each topic and voted on final content for inclusion. The included topics were teratogenesis, folic acid supplementation, pregnancy and fertility, contraception, heritability of epilepsy, menstrual and hormonal disorders, catamenial epilepsy, and taking a sexual history. This review provides a clear, novel framework for pediatric neurologists to counsel adolescent and young adult women with epilepsy about their reproductive health, supporting improvement in practices recommended by professional organization such as the American Academy of Neurology and Child Neurology Foundation.
AB - Epilepsy in the Child-Bearing Ages through Menopause is an international consortium of clinicians dedicated to improving the health of women with epilepsy across the lifespan. Epilepsy in the Child-Bearing Ages through Menopause's Adolescent and Young Adult Committee addresses quality of care for female youth with epilepsy. The Committee developed a literature review and expert opinion guidance for child neurologists on performing optimal counseling about epilepsy and reproductive health for female youth with epilepsy. To do so, we identified and voted on key topics essential for this counseling, then conducted comprehensive literature reviews for each topic, iteratively developed key statements about counseling content and style for each topic and voted on final content for inclusion. The included topics were teratogenesis, folic acid supplementation, pregnancy and fertility, contraception, heritability of epilepsy, menstrual and hormonal disorders, catamenial epilepsy, and taking a sexual history. This review provides a clear, novel framework for pediatric neurologists to counsel adolescent and young adult women with epilepsy about their reproductive health, supporting improvement in practices recommended by professional organization such as the American Academy of Neurology and Child Neurology Foundation.
KW - Adolescent
KW - Adolescent health
KW - Epilepsy
KW - Reproductive health
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105022852541
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=105022852541&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2025.11.002
DO - 10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2025.11.002
M3 - Review article
C2 - 41297128
AN - SCOPUS:105022852541
SN - 0887-8994
VL - 175
SP - 90
EP - 101
JO - Pediatric Neurology
JF - Pediatric Neurology
ER -