Zoloft Lawsuit

Thousands of individual lawsuits against the manufactures of Zoloft have been filed in courts throughout the United States with the first Zoloft Lawsuit expected to be heard in 2014. Despite numerous warnings from the FDA regarding the use of Zoloft during pregnancy, many women have continued to take this medication while being pregnant. Claims are being made that Zoloft birth defects have occurred in countless children as a result, and many people are seeking compensatory damages.

Zoloft Birth Defects Claims

There is a pattern developing that includes five types of Zoloft birth defects and newborn medical conditions that are a direct result of pregnant mothers taking Zoloft. The Zoloft Lawsuit to be heard in 2014 is a combination of 250 separate lawsuits that have been consolidated into one large case that is pending in the US District Court of Pennsylvania. These are the some of the accusations.

• Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn, otherwise known as PPHN, restricts the blood flow to the lungs of the infant during pregnancy. This can lead to increased blood pressure, breathing difficulties, fainting, dizziness, and heart irregularities. It can even cause the lips and skin to develop of bluish tint. The Zoloft Lawsuit claims that nearly 20% of infants born with this abnormally never make it home from the hospital.
• Heart Defects, most notably Atrial Septal Defects, or ASD, and Ventricular Septal Defects, or VSD, are said to be one of the more critical Zoloft birth defects. Both of these disorders are characterized as a hole in the baby's heart that requires immediate surgery and constant monitoring for several years of the infants' first years of development, if not indefinitely.
• Omphalocele occurs when the baby's internal organs begin to develop outside of the body while still in the womb. This can be detected early before the child is born. While this can be corrected with surgery in some cases, the recovery time is difficult for the newborn and for the parents. Statistics also show that nearly 70 percent of children born with omphalocele will also have other forms of Zoloft birth defects. The Zoloft Lawsuit claims that the mortality rate in infants with this condition is nearly 80 percent.
• Craniosynotostosis is a birth defect and physical deformity that affects the shape of the skull. The child is born with an unusually shaped head. Further research indicates that this may have also led to cases of autism in some circumstances.

The fifth form of Zoloft birth defects that the Zoloft Lawsuit claims is the over abundance of newborns experiencing Zoloft withdrawal symptoms. These can be varied and numerous, including difficulty in breastfeeding, excessive crying, vomiting, convulsions, breathing difficulties and even stiffness in the arms and extremities.