Woman Gets Pregnant After Clinic Mixes Up Birth Control Shot And Flu Shot: Lawsuit

A Seattle woman filed a lawsuit last week alleging that a health clinic mistakenly gave her a flu shot instead of a birth control injection, after which she got pregnant.

Yesenia Pacheco went to a Neighborcare clinic in September for a routine shot of Depo-Provera, a hormonal form of birth control that she was scheduled to receive every three months, her attorney, Mike Maxwell, told The Huffington Post.

When she returned three months later for her next shot, clinic workers gave her a pregnancy test — a routine precaution to make sure they aren’t giving the drug to an already pregnant woman.

The test came back positive.

Maxwell says a clinic doctor informed Pacheco that in September, she had received a flu shot, not a Depo shot. The doctor allegedly said she was unsure how the “miscommunication” happened. Billing records also state that Pacheco received a flu shot — but no Depo shot — in September, Maxwell said.

Pacheco, who already had two children, told KIRO-TV that getting an abortion was against her personal beliefs. She’s now suing the federal government — since the clinic is federally funded — for an unspecified amount of money to cover the cost of caring for her daughter, now 3 years old, who suffers from a brain malformation called unilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria. The condition affects the girl’s speech and motor skills, and requires her to take medication twice a day to prevent seizures.

Woman Gets Pregnant After Clinic Mixes Up Birth Control Shot And Flu Shot: Lawsuit