Am I being OTT - seizure during pregnancy

[kim1856]

Hi,

I had a seizure for the first time in my life when about 6 months pregnant. My EEG results came back and the findings were a marker of a person with epilepsy. It also said that this would reinforce a clinical diagnosis.
I won't be seeing a Neurologist until June to receive a confirmed diagnosis.

In the meantime, I had already requested a C section as I had one previously. I've since met with my midwife and a consultant on a few occasions and I have been booked in for a C section 1 day before my due date. I've expressed my concerns that this seems too close to my due date and what happens if I go in to labour early. Each time I have been told I would just come in and if the labour is all going ok then I can give birth naturally.

I have looked this up and the chance of another seizure is heightened during and after labour due to exhaustion etc.

I've asked so many times to have my C section date changed in order to avoid this, but because I keep getting the same answer, I'm worried that maybe I'm just massively overreacting and that it's not a huge deal if I go through labour? My main concerns are that I couldn't look after my current child for about a month after the seizure due to exhaustion and all my family had to look after her for me. I don't want this to happen with a newborn as well. I also can't drive for 6 months anyway due to the seizure and if I have another one, this will increase to a year, which would be a nightmare with 2 children.

Has anyone been through anything similar or have any advice on if I am just being over the top and actually it's quite unlikely that I'd have another seizure if I went through a natural labour?

Thanks

I don’t anything about this so I can not advise. But I just wanted to say that your concerns sound very reasonable and valid.
Do you think you need to make an appointment, then hand them a strong letter and ask them to put in writing why they are refusing you an earlier section. I think you may need to advocate more strongly for yourself. Not that you should need to, but sadly we are often forced to in the NHS.

Hi,

Thank you for your reply!

I have another appointment next week with a different consultant who may hopefully listen to me and book me in earlier.

The main reason they don't want to carry out the C section earlier is that it would make me 38+6 (as they only carry out booked sections the on a certain day) and they only like to carry them out form 39 weeks onwards.

Thank you for your advice for my next appointment, I will write a letter voicing all of my concerns and ask why they are refusing to change the date. To me it seems like a big deal, but doesn't seem it to the midwives etc.

I shall attempt to be a bit firmer!

Thank you

I have epilepsy and had a straight forward vaginal delivery, however everyone is different so you may have another seizure during labour or you may not, no one can tell you. I found there was a lot of fear regarding my epilepsy in the midwifery unit but I had an excellent epilepsy nurse who specialised in pregnancy to advocate for me. I'd strongly recommend pushing for your neurology appointment to be bought forward as then the midwives will be able to be guided by someone who actually knows about the condition, who will then advise them on when to deliver your baby. My epilepsy nurse wrote a detailed check list which the midwife who delivered my baby said was really useful and also gave me some extra medication (I normally take Keppra but she also gave me Clozobam) to take if I felt like a seizure was coming after/before I gave birth or if I'd been in labour for a long time as it prevents seizures and makes you drowsy. I was also automatically under the care of the maternal medicine consultant and specialist midwife rather than the normal route and had a lot more scans including a fetal heart scan. How many weeks pregnant are you now?

For what it's worth, I was a "definite c section" from the word go and I had to fight to be given the choice of a vaginal delivery, but my epilepsy is secondary to a brain tumour (have they done an MRI? They can do it when you're pregnant, they just don't like doing it as you can't have the contrast dye) so there was a very very low risk of me having another seizure. My baby was also born spontaneously and quickly overnight at 36+6 so I'm not overly sure what would have happened if I had wanted the c section anyway.

I have epilepsy (in the past it’s been very severe but not had a seizure since August , conceived in December and was fine until I got sepsis at 10 weeks pregnant in jan) I’m almost 16 weeks now.
They’ve told me unless I have a complicated labour there is no need to book me for a section , and my seizures are triggered by stress, hyperventilating and exhaustion, which a lot of people say they feel in labour . There are some drugs you can’t take in labour but other than that you should be fine and it’ll go smoothly , they don’t like to do a section unless they really have to when Epilepsy is involved x

Thanks so much everyone.

I think I'm more worried as I haven't officially been diagnosed yet, and it only seems to have developed in pregnancy and therefore I'm unsure if I'll ever have another one or if anything in particular will trigger a seizure and haven't been prescribed any sort of medication etc yet.

I've only got 2 weeks left and so don't have an awful lot of time to sort anything out really, so hopefully it will all just go as I've planned. Best case, I won't go in to labour early and can just have my section a day before due as planned.

Thanks for advice all.

Some women have their first seizure during labour or when they're pregnant, it's more common than people think.

If you do go into labour early and you end up having a vaginal delivery, then like the other poster said, avoid opioids as pain relief as they can cause seizures. The most common one used is pethedine. My trust were also against me using a pool in labour incase I had a seizure. As it happened I had most of my labour at home in the bath and arrived at hospital 7cm dilated but I didn't know this would happen before hand!

Even though you haven't been officially diagnosed, the fact is that you have had a seizure and there is a possibility that it could happen again (as there is with everyone) so I'd still see if they can get you some anti epilepsy meds just incase you do have another seizure whilst in labour if you don't get to your c section date.