Baby surprises Salem mom three months early

SALEM – Less than a block from the hospital, Landon Michael Richard was born in the front seat of a 1993 Acura. He weighed 1 pound, 10 ounces, and it was hard to tell if he was breathing.

“I thought that my baby had died,” said his mother, Cara Richard, 18.

But a nurse arrived, rushed him into Salem Hospital and put him in a special unit designed for premature infants. Toward the end of his first week of life, “the nurses and doctors can’t believe how well he is doing, under the circumstances,” Richard said.

He was to undergo heart surgery Friday at Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland to repair an open blood vessel near his heart.

Richard gave birth Saturday. She went shopping with her aunt and began suffering back pains she didn’t realize were contractions. The baby wasn’t due until May 4.

But by late afternoon, the pains were so bad, the two drove to the hospital. About a block away, Richard’s water broke. The next thing she knew, her baby’s head was resting against her lower leg.

At the hospital, the infant has been hooked up to several machines that monitor his heart rate and respiration. He has been nestled in a bed nurses call an “open warmer.” Large sheets of cellophane wrapping stretch across the top to minimize the loss of heat and fluids through his skin and to maintain his body temperature.

Lights and sound are kept low, an environment meant to simulate the womb.

Richard has been limited to touching Landon’s hands and feet and to changing his diapers. One milliliter of her breast milk is fed to him every six hours through a tube in his stomach.

“I haven’t been able to hold him,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”