Bendectin And Birth Defects (Page 9) (Top voted first)

I took this drug in the 1970's while pregnant. Am looking for the side effects to the babies. Drug has been off the market for many years. Not sure on correct spelling. Used for nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Thank you for any help you can send me. Sincerely, Dana.

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Softchirp, Obviously I am sorry that you and your family have suffered through hardships. I have absolutely nothing invested in what people believe with regards to this drug. I only know that there were a large number of lawsuits and a large number of studies and no untoward outcome could be attributed to taking the drug. Look at these postings: People are trying to blame everything from stuttering to migraines to birth defects to sterility to depression and more on bendictin. To go from sperm and egg to blastocyte and divide millions of times to create a human is a miracle. Sometimes it goes wrong. Sometimes there are factors that cause it to go wrong. You said yourself it was thirty years ago that you were pregnant. Who knows to what else you were exposed? I gaurantee that if you post tylenol and birth defects you will get 100 people who took only tylenol during their pregnancy yet everything described here happened to them and their children, as well. I hope you find peace, whether through sharing your stories or pursuing lawsuits. I hope it doesn't burn you out, that's all.

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I agree with you, I even asked the doctor if it would harm the baby and he said no. And now i see all the problems my daughter has, and all i do is get upset and frustrate it. God bless you all.

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My dear Mum took Debendox here in Western Australia in early 1953. I was born in Dec 1953 with a congenital deformity, being, an imperforate ear canal and a malformed pinna. I'm the youngest of four [4] boys and my mother did not take Debendox or any other antiemetic whilst carrying my three [3] elder siblings. They had no deformities at birth. I have seen a young fellow who has the same deformity as me but he is affected on both sides. His Mother took Debendox also. There is still no conclusive proof that Debendox is not a teratogenic drug. Perhaps only time, in cohort with both a course of events and pernicious prescriptions, will reveal its talented tale.

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I did read somewhere, a while back, that Thalidomide [perhaps Bendectin/Dedendox/Diclectin too] is still a prescribed drug in third world countries. Its [Thalidomide] purpose is to combat Hansen's Disease [Leprosy] apparently. I understand that precautions are undertaken to ensure that no women who are aspiring to become pregnant during their being on Thalidomide are given the drug, but unfortunately no system is yet known to be perfected, just as no drug is thought to be without side-affects.

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to Jamie in Denver

I would Very much like to become more involved in your cause for I have a 41 year old son whom I am convinced was harmed by my taking Bendectin during the beginning of my pregancy. My son was diagnosed ADHD in second grade, has learning disabilities, is addicted to liquor and drugs, has anger issues and can't get and hold onto a job. he was recently tested and it was suggested he was slightly bi-polar (brain scans by brain matters in Denver). He also has trouble following societie's which has caused him to be incarcerated.

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this forum is about benedictin, which no doubt causes bith defects of the fingers and toes, namely, extra fingers and toes. i have no doubt about that.anyone considering this drug for nausea during pregnancy should try something safer if at all possible.

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Hi entridoc, I hear what you're saying and value your insight and info. But lets just say that moms like me were asked via International newspapers, or some other far-reaching forum; what we have to say about Bendectin and what it may have done to our offspring?
I wonder if then, the flood gates would open and the drug company would drown.

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softchirp, I would say only to be thoughtful to your approach. Every bad thing that ever happens is unlikely to be due to bendictin (depression, stuttering, ADHD, poor school performance, headaches, blindness, bad social skills, etc, etc.) Look for true patterns rather than random outcomes reported by many people here. Look into what research has been done and what questions haven't been considered (eg next generation) and whether or not the research was well designed and controlled for confounding variables. What did the control groups look like? There were large numbers of pregnant women who took the medication so there was a good amount of data. The manufacturer pulled it despite never loosing a lawsuit b/c they grew tired of defending (and let's be honest, probably b/c it wasn't making money for them or they would have continued - probably went generic). But do look into the research and the results and that should help you sharpen your focus rather than every random outcome.

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This is a completely random group of people affected by this drug, and personally I am sad that after finding out that my mom took it for 6 out of the 9 months she carried me, just this year.... I felt a sense of relief. Relief that there was something I could finally say for certain that was different while my mom was carrying me. She did not take it with either of my brothers. I also feel blessed that I was somehow able to have children. I can't understand why the doctors would ever subject these unborn babies to such horrifying, life long problems. Not only to us, but my child shows the side effects too

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I do not have a facebook page. Is there any other way I can register with you.

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Shanandhan #119, the answer to your question -- be it but a rhetorical one [your question] -- could simply rest with the fact that doctors et al. are given licence to 'practise' medicine, which they can only do, to the best of their ability as human beings, unfortunate as the results may be for those of us whose mothers took Debendox. For a long time I was unaware that children whose mothers had taken Debendox/Bendectin/Diclectin [I have seen another brand name something like 'Lenofan?' too] were born with gross deformities just like the myriad thalidomide babies. This was because my deformity was an imperforate ear canal and deformed pinna on one side only. I thought that this was as bad as it got. "Primum Non Nocere", ie, "First do no harm".

Like Thalidomide, Debendox/Bendectin/Diclectin is thought to be teratogenic, 'terato', from the Greek language, meaning 'monster'. It also means 'marvel'. I wonder...?!!

My Mum told me that she only took a few doses from the one prescription then returned the remainder to the pharmacist as she felt something was amiss. God bless her. She was the best Mum in the world too...but I'll concede she was no orphan! Her funeral was 8th March 2011. Nearly 92 years of age. "A boy has lost his very best friend". Now sleeping peacefully in God's eternal care.

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emtridoc, trust me, i'm not trying to just find someone to blame for my problems, i never realized benedictin was responsible until i met somebody with the exact same defect (extra toe) .he had an extra thumb. no family history of defects, just like me.just a big ol' coincidence?i kinda doubt that.i know we'll never be compensated for it.big drug companies can hire big lawyers, so there ya go.

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Missdebbie61. Sigh. Polydactyly (extra digits) is a very common birth defect. It has been described for hundreds (thousands?) of years, long before bendictin was around. Studies were done to compare the rate of birth defects in the children of mothers who took bendictin and those whose mothers did not. There was no difference in the rate in multiple studies. So yes, it was as likely as not, a coincidence.

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emtridoc,o.k i do respect your opinion.thank you for your response.

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emtridoc, whilst it is true that Dendendox/Bendectin/Diclectin is reputed to have been, till this day, the drug having been placed under far more scrutiny than any other, and yet, has not been proved conclusively to be possessive of any teratogenicity, ponder this analogy if you will: Some [many] children/adults could sustain their lives for quite some time eating only peanuts [if it came to pass that there was no other foodstuff, say], yet others, if they ate just a slight amount of just one peanut only once, would die soon thereafter, and have. Accordingly, this clearly shows that some people should never ingest certain things, be it a foodstuff or a drug. Remember that too, if one is already taking a certain drug, a prudent doctor will never prescribe certain other drugs in concert, begging the question: What other things, if anything, were these pregnant women ingesting, or perhaps already lacking in their system?

To my knowledge, no male [ or known wombless/non-pregnant women] has ever been prescribed Debendox/Bendectin/Diclectin, but this is not to say that no male[or the aforementioned women], of any age, has never ingested some. Ergo, if after an extensive study of males [ or cited women] having done so, a pharmaceutical company could facilely say that: "Debendox has no teratogenic effect because no male [ or cited women] has been deformed in any way. Some pregnant women, evidently, [supposedly, if they did actually ingest it, and did not void it due to their nausea], can ingest Debendox/Bendectin/Diclectin [or peanuts!] resulting in no teratogenic [life-terminating] effect, and others simply cannot.

Considering every person involved in this whole saga, who can and simply cannot, with absolute honesty, say, "No mea culpa!" I suggest only those as being the resultant children involved and the cohorting totally-ignorant. Futhermore, given the plethora of the deformities and parents involved, I'd say that the totally-ignorant [blameless] predominate by a wide margin those knowledgeable or highly suspicious of any teratogenicity [inter alia] whatsoever!

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Togal, trust me, I'm screaming. Of course you can find 130 people (and hundreds more) who have a connection to bendectin and some problem. In this thread benedictin has been connected to just about everything: sterility, ADD, mean personality, learning disability, birth defects, poor school performance, seizures disorder, poor sports performance, etc, etc.,etc. If I took a group of people with this widely disparate set of diseases and asked I could surely find hundreds whose mothers tooks tylenol during their pregnancies. Does that mean tyelenol caused it? No, these things happen. The most common concern is birth defects. The rate of birth defects is no different in mother who took bendectin then those who did not. Birth defects happen. There is no link that was found between birth defects and bendectin.

To Interlineal Peruser: I'm not sure where you were trying to go with your thoughts, but there is no analogy between peanut allergy and teratogenicty so it's hard to draw the comparison you have made. Perhaps a better analogy is alcohol and pregnancy. Many women can drink alcohol during pregnancy and have healthy, normal children. But if you study the rate of leaning disabilities and certain specific birth defects the rate is clearly higher in women who drank alcohol during pregnancy. Similarly, some people who smoke live to a 100 or more. And some people who don't smoke get lung cancer. But we know from studies that people who smoke get significantly more lung cancer and die at higher rates from early heart disease and stroke. Those kinds of studies don't show higher rates of birth defects with bendectin vs. no bendectin.

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I am sorry but these things do not just happen!!! I am one of three children; my two siblings have absolutely no health problems whereas I have a slew of health problems. The only difference noted by my mother is the use of Bendectin for her pregnancy with me. Others on here have said the same thing.
I have a facial deformity. Facial development in a fetus occurs in the first trimester. It was during this time that my mother used the drug. Others I have talked to have also been able to make this further connection.
These two additional facts are not negligible.

When a baby is born with birth defects or when problems arise later on, it is normal to question what went wrong. If tylenol or something so widely used was causing birth defects, inquiring minds (like mothers, affected children and the medical community) would eventually make the connection. Not to mention that we would see a much higher incidence rate (like half the population would be walking around with some kind of defect/abnormality).

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One other thing, Togal. It would be shocking if less than 99% of the postings here weren't about people who had bad experiences that they were linking to bendectin; that's what the forum is about and draws people looking for such. I happened across it looking for something else and probably the only person who's not trying to blame bendictin for an unfortunate outcome. Otherwise it would be 100%. It's certainly not a coincidence, but it's not at all random and statistically meaningless.

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Togal, I am sorry if you or your family have suffered. You have nailed the point right on the head - if a drug is to be linked to an adverse outcome then that adverse outcome should occur more frequently to people who take the drug then those who do not. Birth defects happen. It's been widely studied and they do not happen at a more frequent rate to children born of mothers who took bendictin. There are many families where one or more children were born fine and one with birth defects and nothing was different. It's just that birth defects of some sort or another are very common - 1 out of 33 live births according to the NIH. So statistically chances are reasonable that of multiple children born to a women several may be healthy but one may have a birth defect. That's why it is a coincidence that your mother was on bendictin.

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irregardless of what anybody wants to believe about benedictine, i had to do something about the severe nausea i had when pregnant with my first child.my other children and grandchildren didn't have any defects, but i only took it with my first child. i feel a little guilty since reading this forum, but i didn't know it could hurt .

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