Amanda Antell  |  March 6, 2015

Category: Legal News

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clomidHealthcare providers are warning women who are on fertility treatment, to stay away from Clomid (clomiphene citrate) due to the recent concern of birth defects associated with the drug.

According to one study, using Clomid without adequate medical assistance increased the risk of birth defects by 300 percent.

Clomid is a common fertility treatment medication that is meant to increase egg production in female patients, by stimulating ovulation. It is a first choice fertility option for women struggling to conceive and can have great results under proper medical guidance, but it can allegedly become dangerous to the unborn child if the fertility drug is purchased online without a prescription.

Fertility experts explain that complications occur with this drug because patients who use it without medical supervision do not understand the importance of filtering out the drug before they try to conceive.

Basically, Clomid users need the assistance of a fertility expert because the dose of Clomid needs constant adjustment, and must be flushed from the woman’s system before she becomes pregnant. Poorly timed doses of Clomid can lead to the risk of severe birth defects, particularly skull or cardiac deformities.

As mentioned before, one study reported that Clomid increases the risk of these birth defects by as much as 300 percent, which is alarming considering that over 3 million babies are born each year from fertility treatments.

Another study was conducted in Australia, where a researcher compared the risk of major birth defects in babies that were born from the most commonly available fertility treatments. This included invitro fertilization (IVF), Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), and ovulation induction (Clomid).

Overview of Clomid Birth Defects Findings

The researchers collected their data from a South Australian registry of more than 300,000 birth records and 18,000 birth defects. Approximately 6,100 assisted reproductive technology births had been identified with an 8.3 percent risk of birth defects, compared to a 5.8 percent chance of birth defects of naturally conceived pregnancies.

A 7.2 percent birth defect risk was estimated from infants born through IVF, with a 9.9 percent risk for babies born from ICSI. However, researchers confirmed that women who used the ovulation inducing drug, Clomid, had triple the risk of birth defects compared to natural conception.

These findings were published in the May 5, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. In the article, the researchers stated that while they did find a risk of birth defects with these alternative conception methods, particularly with Clomid, they stated that the overall risk of birth defects was still small, especially when they adjusted their data to include factors that would cause birth defects in a natural conception such as smoking, alcohol consumption, or drug use.

Overall, the researchers stated that they did not wish to cause alarm and that women should consult their physicians if they have any concerns about their fertility treatments.

However, they are not the only ones who found concerning results when observing Clomid. The study that featured the 300 percent statistic was from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, which gained the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It is one of the largest birth defects studies in the United States, which observed the alleged correlation between Clomid and birth defects. It is important to note that this study did not include women who use IVF or other technologically-assisted reproductive methods.

The CDC found that mothers who had used Clomid to conceive had found that their infants suffered from a number of severe birth defects including:

  • Anencephaly (baby born without parts of brain and skull)
  • Coarctation of the Aorta (narrowing of the aorta)
  • Craniosyntosis (premature fusion of an infant’s skull sutures)
  • Esophageal Atresia (baby born without part of the esophagus)
  • Omphalocele (baby’s abdominal organs are outside of the body)
  • Septal Heart Defect (hole in the wall of the heart)

Similarly to the Australian study, the CDC found that the Clomid birth defect occurrences were from a small number of women, and that it is unknown whether or not the birth defects were directly caused by Clomid, or other unknown factors that affected the fertility process.

Despite this reassurance, the FDA warned women to not take Clomid during pregnancy due to the risk of birth defects.

In general, Clomid lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

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If you or a loved one became pregnant after taking Clomid and had a baby with a birth defect, you may have a legal claim. See if you qualify to pursue compensation for your child’s medical expenses, pain and suffering, and other damages by filling out the form below.

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