A Minnesota family was recently awarded $38 million in a Depakote birth defects lawsuit filed against Abbott Laboratories and subsidiary AbbVie.

A jury found that Abbott recklessly failed to warn the medical community and the general public about the dangerous risks of having children born with serious birth defects if a mother uses Depakote during her first trimester.

This Depakote lawsuit was brought by a 12-year-old girl and her family. According to the Depakote birth defects lawsuit, the girl’s mother used Depakote while she was pregnant.

The girl was born with several serious health complications including spina bifida. Spina bifida is a serious and permanently disabling birth defect. Babies born with spina bifida have a spinal column that did not close all of the way.

Spina bifida can cause both physical and mental disabilities. A jury awarded the girl and her family $15 million in compensatory damages.

These damages are meant to cover the lifetime of medical care she will require due to her various birth defects. The jury then awarded $23 million in punitive damages. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a defendant for their intentional or reckless behavior.

The family argued that punitive damages were appropriate because Abbott Laboratories allegedly attempted to hide the Depakote pregnancy risks associated with using the medication.

What is Depakote?

Depakote is a popular anticonvulsant medication often prescribed to treat severe epilepsy, bipolar mania disorder, and migraines. Health conditions such as epilepsy and migraines can cause increased levels of electrical activity in the brain.

This causes an increased stimulation of the nerves in the brain which can, in turn, cause many adverse health symptoms. Depakote works to manage and stabilize these brain signals by increasing the production of a neurotransmitter known as GABA.

GABA helps to relax and calm nerves and prevents the release of unwanted electric impulses. Depakote has become an extremely popular drug, and prior to the expiration of the drug’s patent preventing generic versions of the drug from being produced, Depakote generated about $1.5 billion in sales. Depakote was approved by the FDA in 1978.

In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required Depakote manufacturers to include a “black box” warning on packaging. This occurred after a study found 20 percent of mothers who used Depakote while pregnant had a child born with malformations or a birth defect.

In 2013, the FDA added new restrictions, changing Depakote to a class X pregnancy drug when used for migraine prevention. A class X pregnancy classification suggests that the risks involved with using the drug outweigh the potential benefits for pregnant women.

Side effects of using Depakote while pregnant include risks of having a child born with brain defects, heart defects, spina bifida and other spinal defects, as well as face or skull defects.

Depakote Birth Defects Lawsuits

Several Depakote lawsuits have been filed against Abbott Laboratories and its subsidiary AbbVie. Product liability attorneys believe many more will be filed once the dangerous risks allegedly associated with using the medication during a woman’s first trimester become more widely known.