BECOMING a mother for the first time is daunting for most women. But for 38-year-old Helen Monaghan, who was diagnosed with epilepsy aged 25, there was even more to take on board.
Mrs Monaghan, from Saltcoats in Ayrshire, regularly experiences both "grand mal" seizures - characterised by loss of consciousness and violent thrashing spasms - and "absences".
Read more: Glasgow pregnancy care pilot for women with epilepsy set to be rolled out across Scotland
"To Joe Public, it just looks like I'm daydreaming," said Mrs Monaghan. "If you can imagine being in a swimming pool and being underneath the water, you know you're there and you can hear noise all around you, but you can't respond to anything. That's the only way I can describe it.
"The absences I take daily - they happen anything up to five or six times a day. In terms of the grand mal seizures, last week I had three on the trot on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday."
Read more: Glasgow pregnancy care pilot for women with epilepsy set to be rolled out across Scotland
Even with medication stress and tiredness can trigger an increase in episodes, so after she wed in 2014 she sought advice about becoming pregnant.
She said: "I had been up for a check up and I happened to speak to my specialist nurse, saying that I was newly married and we were thinking about starting a family. I asked if I could stay on the same medication, what happens about breastfeeding - if the medication is in my system how would it affect the baby?
"They put me on a high dose of folic acid and I ended up being on that for the best part of a year and a half before I got pregnant, and then they kept me on it."
Read more: Glasgow pregnancy care pilot for women with epilepsy set to be rolled out across Scotland
Mrs Monaghan altered both her medication and the dose during the 18 months before she conceived her daughter, Orla Joy, who was born on March 1 2017.
"Everyone with epilepsy is different, so trying to find the right combination can take ages. It can take anything up to five weeks per tablet because you've got to slowly wean yourself off it and then put the new one in place.
"I was really lucky not to have too many grand mal seizures during my pregnancy and I think that is testament to getting the right medication in place, going into it slowly and working all these things out.
"I was really well looked after at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock. The maternity unit there could not have done any more for me.
"My hope is that through this pilot being expanded, hopefully more women with epilepsy will do their best to plan their pregnancy."
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