• 15
  • February
    2012

You have just been told that you are pregnant and you are ecstatic! You have been trying for so long to get pregnant and now you will finally be a mother. Your joy is somewhat tempered by the thought, "Can my antidepressants harm my baby?" but you figure that your doctor would tell you to stop taking your medicine if it would risk the health of the child and he or she hasn't said anything. Several months later, your child is born in Chicago with a birth injury and you are left wondering what happened.

It is possible that if your doctor had told you that certain antidepressants can negatively affect a fetus you would have been able to wean yourself off of your medications and your child would have been born healthy. Unfortunately, your doctor let you continue taking your medications and never discussed the risk of fetal injury. Whether your child has suffered withdrawal symptoms after he or she was born or something more serious, such as autism, a heart defect or some other injury, an Illinois birth injury attorney can explain your options for pursuing compensation for medical negligence.

One of the types of antidepressant-linked birth injuries includes persistent pulmonary hypertension. This condition prevents infants from getting sufficient oxygen in their blood and they can experience organ damage, failure or death. A recent medical study reported that using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a type of antidepressant, during the last half of a pregnancy doubles the risk that a child will develop the condition.

Courts have also been taking a look at antidepressants and birth injuries. At some point last year, a family was settled for $2.5 million after a mother who had been taking an antidepressant gave birth to a son with a heart defect. Several papers have shown that a specific type of drug led to birth injuries, but the drug company failed to work the mother's physician of the risk.

Source: The Republic, "Antidepressants and pregnancy: Women must consider the impact of drugs on baby, and of depression on baby, themselves," Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Feb. 7, 2012