For Women Whose Babies Were Born With Birth Defects Possibly Linked to Depakote

We’re spreading the word about women’s health & pharmaceuticals in honor of Women’s Health Week.

If you didn’t know already, women keep this world running. The only catch is women suffer some of the worst injustices — like a pharmaceutical world that neglects to perform clinical testing equally for both men and women. It’s called “Disproportionate Harm.” Women suffer more unnecessary health complications due to pharmaceutical negligence than men.

It’s time to change that. We’ll start by speaking up and sharing this information with our friends. Depakote is an anti-seizure medication that women may have trusted during their pregnancy. Unfortunately, taking Depakote during pregnancy may have an associated risk of several birth defects.

This is “her” story.

It’s the last thing you could ever imagine. The last thing you’d ever dream of happening. The last thing you would ever, ever want.

A child with birth defects; with health complications that could have been prevented altogether.

There are some things in life that we can’t prevent. Say a child getting the very big nose from his or her father or hard-to-manage hair from his or her mother. But those features come from parents — they are more natural and expected.

What’s not expected is a trait that’s not hereditary but that results from a pharmaceutical company selling a drug without adequate warnings.

Taking Depakote during pregnancy may pose associated risks to your baby, including:

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• Fetal Valproate Syndrome
• Hydranencephaly
• Anencephaly
• Hydrocephaly
• Club Foot, Hands/Fingers
• Dysmorphism
• Heart Defects
• Craniostenosis/Craniosynostosis

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Having a child born with birth defects due to Depakote says nothing about the mother or her abilities to care for her child. But it does say a whole lot about the manufacturer of Depakote, Abbott Laboratories, and its ability to care for their patients.

We believe that all mothers and children deserve better, and we invite you to share this information to help get the word out.

All women must know the full safety information of the prescription drugs they are considering taking before they take that first dose — today, it’s up to us to voice our frustrations loud enough that the pharmaceutical world can hear us.