My brother’s 37th birthday was last week, and since then I’ve been thinking about something that happened when he was born. Oh, my parents were hippie types, so they had me (age six) and my unmarried aunt at his birth because apparently my grandmother told both girls repeatedly that giving birth was the most awful thing ever and she thought she’d die all three times; Mom wanted to show us it wasn’t so bad. Joke’s on her, neither my aunt nor I have children.
Anyway, right after lil bro was born, they gave my mother a shot. I know for a fact that he’s A+ like our dad. I’m O- like Mom was. When I was a bit older and asked about it, Mom’s explanation certainly made it sound like she’d been given RhoGAM.
Back then did they assume it was possible that lil bro could be RH+ because dad was, or did they do some sort of blood typing and I missed it?
They probably typed your brother. I’m O- and my wife is A-. Nevertheless when our son was born they typed him saying “just in case he was positive” (i.e., my wife had cheated on me I guess though I suppose some kind of mutation was possible.) This was in 1977. So my guess is they routinely type all children of Rh- mothers. Actually these days they probably type all babies just in case.
If Mom is Rh- she’s going to get the RhoGAM anyway. Same thing if there is bleeding during pregnancy before the baby is even born. Not worth the risk of developing antibodies affecting future pregnancies.
I was born in 1982. My mom is O-, and thought I was too, right up until I joined the Army in 2001 and they told me that, no, I’m O+. She swears she got a shot for my siblings who were born in 89 and 90, and were both positive, but not for me, which is why she though I was the same blood type as her for so long.
She was only 20 when i was born, though, so maybe she forgot some of the details. Maybe they did test me and give her the shot, but she doesn’t remember it if they did.