PPROM, pregnancy trauma, and parent advocacy: an interview with Lauren Pope
I interviewed Lauren Pope, Executive Director of Rehumanize International, about her own high-risk pregnancy with PPROM, as well as her experiences in PPROM online support groups in the years to follow.
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Key Takeaways
- Neonatal outcomes can vary widely by doctor and hospital depending on provider philosophy, training, and willingness to act.
- Parent advocacy groups fill critical gaps, allowing laypeople to share practical knowledge and real-world outcomes that patients don’t always hear about from medical providers.
- Personal crises can become tools to help others; patients can use the knowledge and experience of their own traumas to support and advocate for others facing similar situations.
Summary
“This was seven weeks of my life trying to not move.”
Lauren told me about her first pregnancy when she was a sophomore in college. She was overjoyed to learn she was pregnant, but soon she experienced heavy bleeding. At first her medical team thought she would miscarry, but when her levels didn’t consistently decrease, they learned she had lost one twin while the other, her son, was still alive.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of Lauren’s pregnancy difficulties. At 22 weeks, her water broke and she began to go into labor. Her medical team told her she could either deliver immediately at the current hospital (in which case her son would not survive), or she could transfer to a higher-level facility and try to stay pregnant as long as possible. Confused as to why they would offer an option in which her baby couldn’t live, Lauren opted for the second choice.
So the medical team worked to stop her labor and prolong the pregnancy. She was hospitalized on bed rest for seven weeks, monitored closely for infection, and given treatments to delay delivery. At 29 weeks she had signs of infection, and they delivered her son by C-section weighing two pounds, four ounces.
“Here’s what a fetus at 25 weeks would look like, right here in front of me.”
Lauren’s mom is “extraordinarily pro-choice,” and Lauren grew up considering herself pro-choice as well. But she had a transformative moment while she was hospitalized. She toured the NICU and saw a 25-week premature baby girl. She thought “Oh, that’s just a baby. I’m just looking at a literal baby. How could we possibly support killing a baby?” She said the NICU made her instantly pro-life.
People sometimes assume we are pro-life because we lack experience. We don’t realize how difficult pregnancy can be or how hard these choices are for people. But the reality is that many of us vocally espouse this culturally unpopular position precisely because of our difficult, and often life-changing, experiences. Lauren’s story is an example of that.
“We should let the pregnant ladies talk to each other.”
Lauren is grateful for the care she received from medical providers who helped as much as possible to keep her son alive. It wasn’t until years later that she learned this kind of care isn’t necessarily standard.
She joined online support groups for other parents experiencing PPROM (Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes). They reported doctors giving different information about what options are available, the likelihoods of success, and what they were willing to try. In the most tragic cases, parents joined online PPROM support groups only after losing their babies. They had been in very similar situations to Lauren’s, but in their cases the doctors told them there was nothing to be done. They didn’t learn about other possible treatments until joining the support groups too late.
“20 years ago they were able to save my son. Imagine what things can be now.”
Lauren has been involved in online PPROM support for years. She says these groups are often set up and led by people who endured this and hope to mentor others. In these spaces, patients can ask questions in real time about symptoms, treatment options, and interventions. Members can recommend specific hospitals and doctors known to be more helpful, and the “whisper network” can warn people against particularly difficult practitioners or locations.
If you’re a pro-life doctor, make sure patients can find you. Reach out to AAPLOG about connecting you to the patients looking for pro-life medical professionals.
Interview Chapters
0:00 — Interview Purpose And Background
2:44 — Young, Pregnant, and a Miscarriage Scare
9:43 — Maternal Fetal Medicine screening tests
19:38 — PPROM: Water Breaks At 22 Weeks
24:50 — Hospital Bed Rest And Monitoring
33:45 — Emergency Delivery And NICU Care
41:43 — NICU Visit Made Lauren Pro-Life
49:07 — Finding Online Support Groups
1:00:05 — Gross Mismanagement of PPROM after Dobbs
1:08:12 — Find a Doctor Who Respects and Advocates For You
1:15:50 — We Learn As We Go and Help Each Other
Additional Resources
How doctors can build trust
The PPROM Foundation
Iowa hospital example
AAPLOG directory
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