A Minnesota mother has filed a birth defects lawsuit against the makers of Depakote claiming the anti-seizure medication caused severe birth defects in her two children.

Plaintiff Sara M. is suing Abbott Laboratories and Abbvie Inc. for negligent misrepresentation of Depakote, alleging that the manufacturers knew the medication was a human teratogen and should not be prescribed to pregnant women but waited 30 years before warning the medical community and the general public. 

According to the Depakote birth defect lawsuit, Sara consistently ingested Depakote to control her seizure disorder during her two pregnancies. Both of her children were allegedly born with severe physical and cognitive anomalies including heart defects, hand and foot deformities, hearing problems, speech impairment, emotional and behavioral deficits.

The Depakote lawsuit claims that Abbott and Abbvie knew that pregnant women who used Depakote on a daily basis would be exposing their unborn children to valproate throughout their development.

Sara states that Depakote manufacturers failed to warn that the risk of adverse fetal outcome was 25 percent in mothers that used valproate at doses of 1000 mg/day or more during pregnancy. She alleges that there are plenty of other drugs on the market to treat seizure disorders that have a lower risk of teratogenicity other than Depakote.

Sara claims that her children’s birth defects require on-going medical services such as speech, occupational and physical therapy. She is seeking more than $75,000 in order to cover the cost of medical expenses as well as for the pain and suffering her children have endured.

SSRIs Linked to Birth Defects

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) medications work by preventing neurotransmitters from being absorbed into the nerve cell, rather the neurotransmitter stays in the gaps between the nerves. This process helps improve communication between nerve cells which in turn helps regulate a patient’s mood or seizure disorder.

In a SSRI birth defects study performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers analyzed the data of more than 38,000 women who had given birth between the years 1997 and 2009. With this information, researchers then looked at children born with birth defects and investigated whether their mother took an SSRI during pregnancy.

The CDC researchers found that fetal exposure to the SSRI Prozac led to heart and skull defects, while the SSRI Paxil carried an increased risk of having a child born with a missing brain, heart wall defect or abdominal wall defect. The SSRI birth defect study determined that both of these medications pose a 2 to 3.5 times increased risk for birth defects.

SSRI Birth Defect Lawsuits

More than 1,000 SSRI lawsuits have been filed across the U.S. by plaintiffs alleging that drug manufacturers failed to warn that the medications could led to birth defects through fetal exposure. 

In 2010, GlaxoSmithKline settled nearly 800 Paxil birth defect lawsuits by paying more than $1 billion to plaintiffs.

If you took an SSRI antidepressant during pregnancy and later had a child born with a birth defect, you may have legal claim.

The Depakote Birth Defect Lawsuit is Case No. 3:15-cv-01088-NJR-SCW in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.