Is the Order of Birth a Factor in Epilepsy?

Birth Order in Epileptic Children

“…He emphasized that numbers of epileptics with symptoms beginning in childhood may have been excluded owing to prior transfer to residential institutions. Orr and Risch (1953), investigating 153 epileptics, arranged their clinical material similarly but came to a different conclusion, namely, that the epileptics were born more often than expected towards the end of large families.…”

“…He emphasized that numbers of epileptics with symptoms beginning in childhood may have been excluded owing to prior transfer to residential institutions. Orr and Risch (1953), investigating 153 epileptics, arranged their clinical material similarly but came to a different conclusion, namely, that the epileptics were born more often than expected towards the end of large families.They emphasized, however, that their numbers were small.Though the above results seem conflicting, it is doubtful if they are comparable. Thus ages of onset were not recorded in those studies which included attacks in infancy and childhood, and it was not clear what steps were taken to exclude examples of simple febrile convulsions.…”

“…Enquiries of the type conducted by Brain and Bridge are valuable to the extent that the control material is adequate in respect of such inter-related factors as family size, area of habitation, economic position, race, religion, and frequency of epilepsy in the particular community. The latter factors were controlled by Alstrbm (1950) and Orr and Risch (1953) by their use of sibs of the reference epileptics as controls but here bias was possible to the extent that parents who have had an epileptic child might limit family size afterwards, causing such an epileptic to hold a relatively late birth order position in the family. …”

The controversy of birth order as a risk factor for epilepsy: a study from Saudi Arabia

“…The association of birth order and epilepsy is still controversial as conflicting results have been published. Some authors believe that epilepsy is more common amongst first‐born individuals than those with higher birth orders (1–5), while others think the opposite (6), and few studies did not find any association between birth order and epilepsy (7, 8). These conflicting views could be a reflection of the small sizes of families because high birth orders are possible only in large families and this will result in over‐representation of low birth order because of small families.…”

Birth Order, Sibship Size, and Risk of Epilepsy

“…Investigators have reported that epilepsy is more common among first-and second-born individuals than among those with higher birth orders (Green, 1928;Rosanoff et al, 1934;Nielsen and Butler, 1948;Lilienfeld and Pasamanick, 1955;Malzberg, 1973). On the other hand, Orr and Risch (1953) reported an association between epilepsy and higher birth order, and Alstrom (1950) and Metrakos and Metrakos (1961) noted no association with birth order.…”