Medical Malpractice: Doctor Prescribed Medications to Expecting Mother that Caused Severe Birth Defects
Nov 01, 2012OUTCOME: After extensive discovery, the case resolved one week prior to the hearings on Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment for $5,266,000.00.
In 2004, a female in her 20's was diagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective disorders. A California trial court found that she was “gravely disabled” and incapable of providing for her own food, shelter, ... or clothing. The court ordered that she be placed under a county conservatorship and took away her ability to make her own health care decisions. That power was given to a conservator. A County psychiatrist began prescribing Depakote to treat her mental disorders. Depakote is known to cause birth defects, including spina bifida, if administered to women during the first trimester of pregnancy. The female's conservator consented to Depakote on her behalf. Both the psychiatrist and conservator knew that the female was capable of bearing a child as she had a previous child. Both the psychiatrist and conservator also knew that she was highly sexually active and that she often traded sex for cigarettes from janitors or other boarding house personnel. Nonetheless, neither the psychiatrist or the conservator did anything to protect against the female becoming pregnant while taking a medication that would harm her fetus. The ticking time bomb went off. The female became pregnant. The pregnancy was not diagnosed until her second trimester. Her psychiatrist immediately ordered that she stop taking Depakote. But it was too late, the damage was done. The baby was born with a number of birth defects caused by Depakote, including spina bifida resulting in L4 paraplegia, hydrocephalus, and club feet. Analysis of the baby’s DNA revealed no chromosomal abnormalities.
