The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the medieval to the modern. Today’s post from Jesse Olszynko-Gryn explores the relationship between pregnancy testing and birth defects in the 20th century.

Atkins v. Squibb

In August 1981, People magazine reported that Wyoming attorney Gerry Spence, undefeated since 1969, had won a confidential settlement from the pharmaceutical company Squibb for parents who claimed on behalf of their young, limbless son, ‘that Gestest, the company’s now banned drug to test pregnancies, had caused grotesque birth defects.’[1]

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