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Evidence summaries

Benzodiazepine Use during Pregnancy and Congenital Malformations

An association between foetal exposure to benzodiazepines and major malformations or oral cleft may exist according to case control studies, but the finding is not supported by cohort studies. Level of evidence: "C"

A systematic review 1 including 23 7 cohort studies of non-epileptic patients, 2 cohort studies of epileptic patients and 4 case control studies was abstracted in DARE. The odds ratio for major malformations from the non-epileptic studies was 0.90 (95% CI 0.61 ti 1.35). The case control studies reported an OR of 3.01 (95% CI 1.32 to 6.84); 2 studies reported a non-significant association and 2 studies reported a significant association. The odds ratio of oral clefts for non-epileptic studies was 1.19 (95% CI 0.34 to 4.15). The case control studies reported an OR of 1.79 (95% CI 1.13 to 2.82).

    References

    • Dolovich LR, Addis A, Vaillancourt JM, Power JD, Koren G, Einarson TR. Benzodiazepine use in pregnancy and major malformations or oral cleft: meta-analysis of cohort and case-control studies. BMJ 1998 Sep 26;317(7162):839-43. [PubMed] [DARE]

Primary/Secondary Keywords