Paxil and the Damage Done

Toledo, OH" In 2004, my wife took Paxil during the first trimester of her pregnancy," says Roy Gueldenzoph. "Two days after our daughter was born, our doctor gave us two options: do nothing and she dies, or get her to a heart specialist immediately. We opted for the latter."

Kenndyl was born in September, 2004 and lived for just 18 days. "She passed away on my wife's birthday," says Roy. "We have a five-year-old and Kim is now seven months pregnant; I know that she will never take Paxil again."

"When Kenndyl was born, there was no indication that she had any birth defects, until Kim tried to breastfeed her," says Roy. "It was a struggle and she didn't cry. Then we realized that she was struggling to get her breath . On the second day, the pediatrician knew there were serious issues just by looking at her but they were unsure of a diagnosis.

Kenndyl had heart tests and they found an underdeveloped left ventricle. Next thing I know, they had an ambulance arranged and she was taken to NICU at Toledo Hospital. We followed in our car. Further testing took place and the diagnosis was given: hypoplastic left heart syndrome ( HLHS). The prognosis: attempt to repair. She was then rushed to a heart specialist at the University of Michigan Children's Hospital.

Dr. Bove performed open-heart surgery and she was put on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a form of long-term heart-lung bypass. Theoretically you could stay hooked up to this machine forever but it isn't the quality of life anyone would want. She was on it for about a week. Kenndyl seemed to be doing extremely well; her blood pressure and heart beat were looking good.

On October 13th they decided to wean her off ECMO and she had another surgery performed. But at 3pm she crashed.

Initially, we had no idea that Paxil could have been a concern. But when the FDA issued its warning in December of 2005, I jumped on the Internet and started to educate myself about Paxil and find out if there were any other cases like ours. We found little bits of a lot - in other words, not exactly the same diagnosis as Kenndyl's but similar ailments and many heart defects. It was so early back then regarding Paxil's link to birth defects and I don't think, even now, we know the scope of this terrible drug and the misery it has caused.

'Pissed off' would be the words to describe me. And heartbroken. The tragedy is that Kim didn't even need to take Paxil. This drug is so over-prescribed.

On its website, The OBGYN Association says that under no circumstances should you take Paxil while pregnant and it also says there are other SSRIs you might want to consider instead of Paxil... once we read this, it really hit home.

To this day, we both feel guilty. As a consumer of anything, you can only make decisions with the information at hand. If the information is faulty, how can we make an educated decision? We were taken and we were misled.