The hospital magnesium drip more than halved seizures in pregnancy
Magnesium sulphate given by drip to 10,141 women with pre-eclampsia more than halved eclamptic seizures and cut the mother's own risk of dying. Magnesium capsules are not this drug.
What the study found
Magnesium sulphate more than halved seizures in 10,141 pregnancies
This is a hospital drug, not the supplement. Magnesium sulphate goes in by drip, to women with pre-eclampsia, a dangerous rise in blood pressure during pregnancy, and it cut the mother's own risk of dying alongside the seizure risk. It beat the two older anti-seizure drugs as well.
The caveat · Review and trial are not independent
This is magnesium sulphate at monitored clinical doses through a vein; magnesium sold in capsules has never been shown to do anything for eclampsia risk. The trial ran across 33 countries with very different standards of care, so the background risk it was measured against varied from site to site. And the Cochrane review is built around this same trial, so the two are not independent of each other.