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Wellbutrin® and Birth Defects

If your infant was born with a birth defect and you have a history of taking Wellbutrin® while you were pregnant, you might qualify for compensation. To find out more information, please contact our Wellbutrin® lawyers.

Does Wellbutrin® Cause Birth Defects?

Wellbutrin® is a Category C pregnancy medication. Category C indicates the drug shows toxicity when tested in animals, but that no adequately controlled human studies done in large enough numbers can confirm toxicity in humans.

A recent study reported in 2010 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found a possible link between Wellbutrin® taken in the early weeks of pregnancy and heart defects called left outflow tract heart defects in the newborn. The authors of the study concluded that more research is needed to be done to confirm the findings.

Wellbutrin® Birth Defects

The study reported in the journal included:

6,853 babies born with major heart defects
5,869 babies born normally
Born in the years 1997 to 2004
Bupropion (Wellbutrin®) was defined as any use between one month before pregnancy and three months after conception

The researchers found that the mothers of infants born with left outflow tract heart defects were more likely to have reported taking bupropion than mothers of the control infants. The adjusted odds ratio was 2.6.

Two left outflow tract heart defects were found. They were:

Coarctation of the aorta. This defect is a narrowing of the aorta, the major blood vessel that leaves the heart through which blood is pumped to the rest of the body. When this blood vessel is constricted, the heart must work much harder to pump blood around to the body's tissues and organs. Although this occurs when the infant is a developing fetus in the mother's womb, it can remain undetected until a person is an adult.
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome. This defect describes a heart whose left side is significantly and seriously smaller than normal. Because of this extremely underdeveloped side of the heart, the right side must assume the task of both sides of the heart, pumping blood to the lungs and sending it around to the rest of the body. Medication and heart surgery or a heart transplant is needed to correct this defect.