Betty Mekdeci

Betty Mekdeci is the Executive Director at Birth Defect Research for Children. Her website is http://www.birthdefects.org/about-us/. On her website, Betty tells everyone how she feels that her sons birth defects were caused by medications she had taken . 

Betty says “Our son was born with a small, undeveloped right hand and shorter arm; pectus excavatum (a chest wall defect) and missing pectoralis muscle. He also has a bicuspid aortic valve. When David was born, I shared a room with a lady who worked at a center for the most severely handicapped children. She kept telling me our son’s problems were not that bad. This helped us in the early days.

Betty was inspired to build her organization because she was frustrated that it was so difficult to find out anything about her son’s birth defects or why they had happened. One Christmas, Betty told her family that she was going to start a national support group for families of children will all kinds of birth defects. That was the beginning of the Association of Birth Defect Children which now operates under the DBA, Birth Defect Research for Children. 

For those who have Spina Bifida or their family members we have a fact sheets on Spina Bifida and Neural Tube Defects. These are sheets that anyone can download immediately from our web site; links to Spina Bifida organizations in our Family Support Center; parent matching through our National Birth Defect Registry and the ability to participate in research on potential causes of Spina Bifida by entering your case in the registry.