A study of seizures in women during postpartum period

All patients who were admitted in our hospital with history of seizures in the postpartum period (within 6 weeks after delivery) were included in the study to ascertain the cause of seizures and their outcome, and women with prior history of epilepsy were excluded from this study. Among 95 patients recruited, primipara women (67 patients) had high risk of seizures. Women between the age group of 21-25 years constituted a large number of patients in this study (44.26%). Seizure occurrence was more on the first day following delivery (69.47%). Imaging of the patients showed posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) as the most common cause of seizure (35.57%), second most common cause was cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) (31.57%). Eclampsia was the third among the list (29.47%). 3 patients had intracerebral haemorrhage (3.15%). Eclampsia patients had normal imaging with high blood pressure, high (+++) urine albumin and deranged haematological values. Women with PRES and eclampsia had good outcome with no mortality. While patients of CVT had a mortality of 10% in our study. Conclusion: In this hospital based study, PRES was the most common cause of seizure in postpartum women (35.57%), followed by CVT (31.57%) and eclampsia (29.47%). Patients of PRES had good outcome and patients of CVT had higher mortality.