Each drug is different and there are varying levels of risk. Most drugs are tested for foetal abnormalities at birth but very few test children at 5 years, when learning difficulties are noticed and can be recorded. Consultants are only concerned about controlling the mothers health problem and theit offspring go to paediatrics so cause isn't recorded.
Of course it is ludicrous to treat women as this headline suggests but the history of these meds exposes a far darker prejudice. For many years it was assumed that children with lds are that way because their mothers are either mad or epileptic. They are still doing genetic research to try and prove this link.
This article shows a shift in opinion, perhaps it is not the lunacy of the mother that is to blame for the behaviour of their children.
Sorry that's a rant and slightly off the feminist issue, informed choice is indeed the key here, but who is providing what information and to whom?
Valproate is in a roundabout way absorbed by the foetus away from the mother, baby cannot process it and so baby suffers. Yet for 30 years damaged children were born and the medics all said it was a genetic defect.