Common drug taken for anxiety, pain, epilepsy ‘could cause birth defects’

A drug used for treating pain, epilepsy, anxiety and other disorders may be linked with an increased risk of major birth defects, according to new research.

Pregabalin is approved by the British National Health Service (NHS) and United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat epilepsy, fibromyalgia and neuropathic pain – such as pain from diabetic neuropathy or pain after shingles or spinal cord injury.

The drug, originally marketed as Lyrica, is also prescribed for general anxiety disorders and other mental health issues.

For the study, published online by the journal Neurology, information was collected in seven countries from 164 women who took pregabalin during pregnancy and 656 pregnant women who were not taking any anti-seizure drugs.

The women or their doctors were then contacted again after their expected date of delivery.

Pregnancies of the women who took pregabalin during the first trimester were three times more likely to result in major birth defects than those of the women who did not take anti-seizure drugs.

Seven of the 116 pregnancies in women taking anti-seizure drugs (six per cent) had major birth defects, compared to 12 of 580 pregnancies (two per cent) in women who didn`t take the drug.

The major birth defects included heart defects and structural problems with the central nervous system (CNS) or other organs.

The women taking pregabalin were six times more likely to have a pregnancy with a major defect in the central nervous system than women who were not taking the drug, with four CNS defects out of 125 pregnancies (3.2 per cent), compared to three CNS defects out of 570 pregnancies (0.5 per cent).