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Brie-Anne Wentz expected to have a baby shower on Saturday, June 25. Instead, the 18-year-old found herself being airlifted to Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH)–Cedar Crest to have her baby.
It was a first pregnancy for Wentz of Hazleton, and she was between six and seven months along. She’d been treated for a urinary tract infection (UTI) a month earlier, so when she started having pains in her stomach on Friday, she wondered if she’d come down with another UTI. Irregular pains persisted all night – sometimes an hour apart, sometimes two minutes. “The next morning, the pain was too much,” Wentz says. She went to the emergency room at LVH–Hazleton.
Wentz’s obstetrician/gynecologist at Lehigh Valley Physician Group (LVPG) Obstetrics and Gynecology–Alliance Drive quickly determined that she was contracting frequently. After sending off a fetal fibronectin test that would help predict preterm labor, Wentz’s doctor found that she was already dilated 4 centimeters. The labor and delivery team started an intravenous line of magnesium sulfate that would slow contractions and help protect the fetus.
When the fibro nectin test came back, the team decided to send Wentz to Allentown. That’s because, while LVH-Hazleton can handle preterm births, LVH–Cedar Crest has neonatology and maternal fetal medicine specialists and a NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). All those resources are just a 17-minute flight away.
Time was crucial, so within an hour of Wentz’s arrival, she was being loaded onto Lehigh Valley Health Network’s MedEvac helicopter. Wentz’s boyfriend, Tyler Galade, his mother, his sister and Wentz’s mother followed by car.
In LVH–Cedar Crest’s prenatal unit, the baby received steroid shots to help promote lung development while Wentz received more medication to help control labor. She rested as much as possible over the next two days until her water broke on Monday, June 27, and John Michael Galade came into the world at 9:11 p.m., weighing 3 pounds, 1 ounce.
John Michael spent one month and one week in the NICU. Mother and father drove to LVH–Cedar Crest twice a week, staying at the nearby Hackerman-Patz house where out-of-town patients’ loved ones can find convenient and affordable accommodations. “Both the baby and I were definitely well cared for,” Wentz says. “The nurses kept me really well informed about how the baby did that day and called me when I couldn’t drive to the hospital.”
Nurses educated Wentz on feeding the baby and hitting benchmarks such as taking at least 2 ounces at each feeding and eating on his own schedule while getting enough nourishment each day. When he had gained weight and seemed clear of risks such as breathing or eating difficulties, little John Michael went home.
“He’s doing so good, you wouldn’t know anything had happened,” Wentz says. “He’s happy and smiles all the time. He’s an awesome baby.”
–Richard Laliberte