# 8-month pregnant mother shot dead. How long to save unborn child?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/8-month-pregnant-mother-shot-dead-how-long-to-save-unborn-child/800881>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 6, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/8-month-pregnant-mother-shot-dead-how-long-to-save-unborn-child/800881 "2017-11-06T12:34:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/8-month-pregnant-mother-shot-dead-how-long-to-save-unborn-child/800881/1 "2017-11-06T12:34:43Z")

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In the Sutherlands Springs massacre, one of the victims was 8 months’ pregnant. How long would the baby have survived _in utero_ after the mother was shot? Would it have been long enough for an emergency cesarean? (q.v. Malcolm in MacBeth)

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**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/8-month-pregnant-mother-shot-dead-how-long-to-save-unborn-child/800881/2 "2017-11-06T14:26:49Z")

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There have been instances of dead pregnant women where the baby was saved. You only have minutes to act, though - once the mother’s heart stops the baby is not getting oxygen anymore.

“Mother is dead” was the original form of c-section, as slicing open a living woman to the extent necessary in primitive conditions without modern medical care was pretty likely to result in her death if she wasn’t already in that state. Once in a very great while a woman might survive that, but it was very much the exception and not the rule.

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/8-month-pregnant-mother-shot-dead-how-long-to-save-unborn-child/800881/3 "2017-11-06T14:36:23Z")

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That’s where [Saint Raymond the Unborn](http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=314) gets his sobriquet. And yeah, basically it’s a “fuck she’s dead where’s my biggest knife” kind of situation.