18 weeker...

Nurses General Nursing

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Got a call on the radio this morning...ambulance had 10 min ETA with a mom who had just delivered. She said she was only 2 months pregnant...but medics said baby was trying to breathe and had a HR of 200. Called the NRT down from OB etc...

Ambulance got to the ER and met them in the bay since we didn't know what to expect.

Baby was smaller than the length of my hand, about the width of 3-4 of my fingers...gasping for breath, HR slowing down...went for a couple minutes without a heartbeat, then it would come back slowly for a minute or so...very sad...nothing you can do so early on.

OB nurse estimated him (yep, him) to be ~ 18 weeks.

Mom is 16 y/o...this was her 3rd baby.

:eek: :confused: :o :( :angryfire

Specializes in Adult internal med, OB/GYN, REI..
Originally posted by fergus51

Not to rant, but let's not forget about the other person responsible for this: THE FATHER OF THE BABY!!! Or do we not even know who he is??? Freaks, all of them! Why a 16 year old is on her third pregnancy is beyond me.

wow....freaks huh? that's kinda harsh, eh?

hmmm.

Specializes in NICU.

I'm just amazed the baby had a HR of 200...

l saw a 12 wk fetus...brought in by a 16 yr old...''l didn't know l was pregnant''......saw a 17 weeker....mom discovered she had third stage hodgkins...needed to makda decision..so she had a theraputic ab......very sad.........LR

Originally posted by joyrochelle

wow....freaks huh? that's kinda harsh, eh?

hmmm.

Harsh? For a 16 year old having a third pregnancy she can't even date probably fathered by a 25 year old? No. I see them at work far too often and the whole thing is sad. Very sad.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Ya know i did not expect to get slammed with my one solution comment here....... sometimes, there are NO"cures" and YES! ---abstinence until commitment is ideal, however we all know, we don't live in a ideal world. Also, fergus brings up a valid point; we miss 50% of the equation when leaving the male's responsibility out of it. "keep their legs shut" is not the ONE SINGLE SOLUTION....that is what I meant. This is a huge, multidimesional issue. We have a whole host of social ills to solve first before this can be resolved, if ever.

Often, do not forget, when young girls are involved, rape and/or coercion may play a factor in their early sexual activity and pregnancy rates. I mean, 3 babies at 16??? COME ON! "keeping her legs shut" may not be the ISSUE at all.

What are we teaching our kids about self- respect and healthy sexuality ? Biology and stern lectures about abstinence are obviously not the answer..... I only know I am teaching my ds who is 10 that his body is to be respected and also girls are NOT play things to trifle with. I think it begins there. It is indeed a complicated issue. I just hope we get to adulthood w/o major problems like this with our kids. I do what I can.:o

You know... I'm not all that old - I am 25, graduated from high school in 1995... But (with the exception of one guy who was just a skeeze) none of my friends were having sex back then.

We were involved in lots of extracurricular activities, but none of them could have resulted in disease or teen pregnancy. Our parents always knew where we were, what we were doing, etc.

Plus, we were a bunch of dorks. ;)

Of course, flip side of the situation... I have a 15 year old cousin who has had SIX pregnancy scares since January... Mmhmm. That's nearly one per month. Of course, her parents NEVER know where she is...

Then again, even when my parents had no idea where I was, I wasn't "doing it." Maybe it has more to do with self-respect than anything else...and that's completely individual.

Donna :)

I worked on a Mother-Baby unit for 7 years. Yes there are plenty of teen moms who became pregnant because they didn't really try not to, or actually did want to, but I think everyone would be as surprised as I was to find out the very high number of teen pregnancies, especially the younger ones (11-15 year olds) who were molested by brothers, uncles, their own mom's boyfriends, etc. We sicked the social service on these cases but after they were discharged we unfortunately usually never found out the results of our efforts.

After working with these young women and learning the truth of their precious lives, I no longer pass judgement on anyone for anything until I learn of their actual circumstances.

By the way, a 17-18 weeker will have a heart rate for 5 minutes on up to a few hours. The younger a fetus is, usually the higher the heart rate is although 160 is more the average when still inside the womb. The 200 heart rate would be expected since the child's body was trying to compensate for the lack of a placenta keeping him/her alive. (I've been a NICU nurse for 4 years and have unfortunately seen my share of premature births in Labor and Delivery... we are called to attend all premie births when the EDC dates are not confirmed, just in case there is a chance of survival.)

Good point Donna. Being involved with your kids is very important these days and seeing that they become involved in extracurricular activities helps keep them occupied so they don't have too much free time on their hands. They say idolness is the devil's workshop, and I firmly believe it is. Didn't mean keeping one's legs crossed was a single and ONLY solution, just meant that it's one of many solutions to the problem

If my daughter can't keep her legs crossed, I'm certainly not going to blame society, I'm going to blame myself and my husband for not being involved with her more and giving her the attention she deserves.

Self esteem needs to be instilled when they are very young so that by the time they are old enough to have sexual relationships, they have the self respect needed to say, "I'm saving it for the right time with the right person." And Donna, dork is good these days. LOL. If the girls aren't "HOT" looking the boys don't want to mess with them... another solution.

Originally posted by night owl

And Donna, dork is good these days. LOL. If the girls aren't "HOT" looking the boys don't want to mess with them... another solution.

I agree with you, night owl...I wish today's styles weren't so revealing...hip huggers...tight shirts...belly buttons...showing off your thong... guys are turned on by it, so these girls are just asking for trouble...

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