Birth Defects Caused By Drugs: Lawsuits Mounting
Paxil lawyers say that SSRI birth defect lawsuits are mounting as more and more women are given anti-depressants without proper warnings and without proper monitoring. It's a billion dollar industry and manufacturers continue to fight anti-depressant birth defect lawsuits which allege that these drugs not only cause birth defects in children and are given to women of childbearing age, but they cause a whole host of other side effects such as:
Black Box Warnings; SSRI Birth Defect Lawsuits Involving Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil & Others
Prozac was the first of these drugs which came to the market many years ago and then Zoloft, Paxil and the others followed. In 2004, the first black box warning came out with respect to these drugs causing suicidality in children and increased depression. In 2006, the warning was changed to include an increased risk of suicide in young adults. However, Paxil lawyers say that doctors and psychiatrists still give out these drugs to too many people for too many indications - many of which are not approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
Birth Defects From Drugs Include Heart Defects & PPHN Injuries
There are primarily two types of birth defects associated with these antidepressant drugs and pregnancy. The first deals with the heart and includes cardiac, atrial and ventricular septal defects. Typically, women are on these drugs prior to being pregnant and they're not told by their physicians that there's any risk - which is important with respect to the women of childbearing age because it's within the first three months, or first trimester, of the pregnancy that taking these anti-depressant drugs increases the risk of congenital malformation and specifically cardiac malformations such as atrial, septal and ventricular defects. Women who take these anti-depressant drugs during pregnancy quadruple the risk of their babies experiencing a septal heart defect.
The second is something called PPHN, which is persistent pulmonary hypertension - and this is different. It is caused when mothers ingest it during their third trimester as opposed to the first trimester - so it's after the 20th week. The risk of PPHN is six times greater for women who take anti-depressant drugs during pregnancy than for women who haven't taken anti-depressants during pregnancy.
SSRI Pregnancy: Women Didn't Know About Anti-Depressant Birth Defect Side Effects
Most women won't ingest anything if there's a chance that it would harm their child. In fact, many won't drink caffeinated or alcoholic beverages, smoke or eat certain types of fish in fear of developing mercury poisoning. So, why would a woman choose to take an anti-depressant drug during pregnancy that had the potential of causing a cardiac defect or any anti-depressant birth defect side effect?
The answer to that, according to Paxil lawyers , is that they didn't know about birth defect side effects because they were told by their doctors that these anti-depressants were completely safe or that they were already taking them and shouldn't stop - regardless of their pregnancy. It may have been too late for some women who had been taking them and didn't discover they were pregnant until well into their first trimester. However, before the warnings came out, doctors were under the impression that these drugs were safe - because that's how they were marketed.