| Summary: | Sodium valproate is licensed in the EU for treating generalized, partial, or other forms of epilepsy. It has also been used to treat bipolar disorder and to prevent migraine. In February of this year, the European Medicines Agency recommended that sodium valproate should not be used during pregnancy unless no other effective treatment is available, and that it must not be used in women able to have children, unless the conditions of a pregnancy prevention programme are met.[1] These measures to protect women and their children are welcome, but we argue that they should have been instituted several years ago, as the evidence was clear as far back as 1990 that there were risks of congenital malformations in women exposed to valproate.
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