Children of returning soldiers being born with birth defects?

[Shanna Nick]

I am in tears right now as I type after finding out through your stories that my daughter's birth defects being from deployment shots was not a crazy conspiracy that I've been dredging up in my head.
I am a military veteran. Served between 2000 and 2002. My daughter was born in May of 2002 with cleft lip and palate, hydrocephalus, web toes and fingers, cognitive delay, skin tags on head and one on her back that looked like a tail, amniotic band syndrome which left her with missing digits on her hands and feet, in particular her big toe, on each foot, which is needed for balance, so she also could not walk.

I remember the day I got the deployment shots. It was the day of the morning I notified my superior I may be pregnant. Later on in the day I was ushered into a line to get shots and at the end of the line was my Sergeant whom I informed that morning, who said "you shouldn't have got those shots" and I said "why" and he said nothing and ushered me away. He said it as if he knew something I didn't about those shots. I blame myself every day since then for what happened to her. I was so naive.
Because of the congenital hydrocephalus my daughter had to have a VP shunt placed at 2 months old. It lasted 11 years before needing a revision. The revision surgery resulted in a staff infection, that led to a non traumatic brain injury septicemia and her death. She lived for two months after the brain injury and she was 90% brain damaged. The hospital was also negligent but trying to sue them was a nightmare and ultimately they were too big of a giant to take down.
I feel so defeated. I can hold no one accountable for our pain and suffering even though the evidence is right there.
I have had 5 heathly children since then the two following my daughter had minor issues. My son following her had slight cognitive delays and memory problems and my son following him was born with testicles that have not dropped. I am waiting to see if puberty make them drop before i allow surgery due to my paranoia of all things government and and Western medicine.
My following children two children appear to have no problems at all but I also have no history of cleft lip and palate or any congenital birth defects in either family.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Originally Posted by remee

I had some secondary losses as well but I never contributed them to the deployments. I had never had any problems conceiving and carrying a baby to term until my husband and I began trying.
I ended up with 4 losses, one I carried to 16wks and then lost that baby with no answers as to why.
I finally got pregnant again with my son who is almost 3yrs now. He was suppose to be a twin, but I lost the twin in the early part of the pregnancy.
I didn't carry my son complete to term, I ended up with severe preeclampsia and had to be induced at 33wks. He has no birth defects and only had to stay in NICU for a month before coming home.
The severe pre-e in my thoughts, would be more due to me, not the deployments. I have no answers to the previous losses though.

Oh, and before my husband's first deployment, he had to be doubly immunized due to them losing his records of the previous immunizations.. Umm, yeah.

I'm sorry for your losses..

Originally Posted by blue_eyedgirl

I have yet to hear anything about it with this round of deployments but I have read and seen quite a bit about children being born with birth defects from the first Gulf War. Its entirely possible that this could be what happened in your situation. Has this been happening more with in your community? What do the doctors say?

One of my colleagues on our '91 deployment later had a child with some defects.

And yeah, the military is as irresponsible as can be regarding "immunizations." They gave us about nine shots in a row, walk down the line, firing squad, bang bang bang bang with their air shots. Smart.