Persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn is a life-threatening disorder in which the newborn's arteries to the lungs remain constricted after delivery, limiting the amount of blood flow to the lungs and therefore the amount of oxygen into the bloodstream. Newborns who have PPHN are typically full-term or near-term infants who are born without associated congenital abnormalities, yet present after birth with severe respiratory failure. Babies born with this condition often require intubation and mechanical ventilation. Despite this treatment, 10 to 20 percent of affected infants do not survive.

Baum Hedlund has been at the forefront of antidepressant litigation for 17 years. We have seen, first hand, the harm antidepressants can cause and are extremely motivated by our clients’ tragic stories. In our representation of our clients, we dig deep into drug company files to discover the truth about what the company knew about the drug’s risks, when the company knew of those risks and what efforts, if any, the company took to hide those risks. Only through legal action can anyone gain access to this information. We fight hard to get this information into the public domain to prevent others from having to endure similar tragedies.

This is why we filed the first PPHN lawsuit in the United States. We are extremely concerned about the association between certain SSRI-antidepressants and PPHN.

On July 19, 2006 the FDA issued a public health warning and urged the manufacturers of certain SSRI-antidepressants to change their prescribing information to describe the potential risk of PPHN. The drugs with the potential of causing PPHN are:

The FDA was prompted to issue this warning because of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by Christina Chambers of the University of California, San Diego, in which she found a six-fold increased risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPH) in infants born to mothers who took an antidepressant in the last trimester of pregnancy.

Since the FDA is seeking additional information about the possible risk of PPHN in newborn babies of mothers who took SSRI antidepressants in pregnancy, we urge you to report your child’s case to the FDA through their MedWatch program at http://www.fda.gov/medwatch.