Birth of a Baby

As an Army wife, Rhoda Wenger had learned to live like a gypsy: for four years she had followed her husband, Corporal Leland Wenger, from one camp to another. Last winter, to give her a change of scene, he decided to take her to New York for a whirl. En route, their car crashed into a truck.

Wenger woke up in a hospital with a fractured right leg. His wife was critically hurt: severe multiple brain hemorrhages which caused complete paralysis of her limbs and facial muscles. She could not talk, eat or even smile. And she was pregnant.

At the hospital in Allentown, Pa., where she was taken, the immediate problem was feeding the mother and her unborn child. The delivery was still six months away, and natural forces would come into play at the right time. Many paralytics and iron-lung mothers have given birth to normal babies; their condition is somewhat similar to that induced by the pain-killing caudal anesthesia.

Rhoda Wenger was fed through nasal tubes. To find foods that her stomach would accept, dietitians tried everything: vitamins in liquid form, juices, beef broth. Sometimes the formula was changed several times in a day.

Last week, a month early, and still unconscious, Rhoda Wenger gave birth to a 4 lb., 2 1/4 oz. girl. As the premature baby grew, Rhoda Wenger waned: despite five transfusions of hemoglobin, her weight was down to 85 pounds. Said the despairing father, still hospitalized in Washington: "I don't know how long she can keep fighting."

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