I am going to ask a morbid question.
How long can a fetus live when the mother is dead?
And the weird thing is before this news broke, I was wondering just what in the heck had happened to this case.
Neither linked article indicates that the remains are skeletal. The article in the OP lists the condition of the baby’s body as “badly decomposed”, but no real details about the woman’s body - other than it was “apparent” that she was/had been pregnant, the corpse was not complete, and that she was wearing some clothing - were given.
I read a book about Sharon Tate that said the coroner estimated her baby lived about ten minutes after she died—but come to think of it, they gave no hint as to how they came to that conclusion . . .
Maybe it deals with the oxygen supplies in the blood.
A fetus gets everything it needs to survive from it’s mother, and oxygen is carried from the mother to the fetus by the cord, so I imagine that if the mother dies, that the baby would die shortly afterwards, I would say less than ten minutes? I tried searching on Google, but all I could find was information on banking cord blood. But if the fetus doesn’t get oxygen and nutrients it can’t survive, that poor little baby.
Margo
Can this be true? Does bloating cause that much pressure inside the body, and would that pressure push the baby out? If that’s true, why aren’t internal organs pushed out as well?
Damn. I picked the wrong weekend to see Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation.
Also, IIRC, they said the baby was full-term. So for this to happen, Laci would have had to have been alive somewhere until February, right?
Acc. to the expert on Greta van Susteren’s show last night, a baby would indeed be expelled because of the bloating. (I’m sure some medical examiners have seen it all.) He didn’t specify that the child was expelled vaginally…of course, that would be the path of least resistance, no?
At least Laci’s family can bury her and her child, if indeed it is proven to be them. 
Full-term just pretty much means it can survive outside the womb without extraordinary aid. i.e., end of the third tri.
Odd, but now they can’t seem to find her hubby.
This is so sad. If it turns out to be him then I would make him hold his baby for an hour while he explained to it why he killed it’s mother.
Sorry. I know that that is really gross but justifying to me somehow.
This is pathetic and gross, but I have read that either the baby was cut out, or Sharon was cut sufficiently open so that the baby could have begun to breath on his own. A quick googling brought up no reliable confirmation of this. The more lurid sites tend to be the least trustworthy ones.
I’m not sure, if it is her body, it proves he did it (although the circumstantial evidence, granted, is pretty massive).
bup’s reading comprehension = lose.
Ah. Thanks, guys.
According to Greg King’s biography of her (and he’s a pretty reliable writer), the baby was actually completely unhurt; Sharon died of several knife wounds, none of them in the abdomen.
Who the heck are you talking about, and should I care?
Let’s see. If you are talking about who Laci Perterson is-She is the pregnant mother in California who disappeared on Christmas Eve, she was 8 months pregnant and the father Scott says that he went fishing at the marina not too far from where the bodies were found (they found the baby’s body first and then then an adult woman).
As far as Sharon Tate goes, she was a really pretty model in the 60’s who was pregnant at the time she was killed by some of Charles Manson’s followers. I think that she was married to a guy named Polanski, who fled the U.S. for I believe sex with an underage girl? Someone can correct me on that if I’m wrong. It’s been awhile.
You must be young, then. Charles Manson and his band of wackjobs plotted to touch off arace war, where the blacks would slaughter the whites. Then, with no knowledge of how to run things, they would turn to Charlie, and he would become some kind of frickin’ king. The first victims, chosen semi-randomly, were a group of people staying at Roman Polanski’s house in the Hollywood Hills, including his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate. Needless to say it didn’t work. The year was what, 1967? Something like that.
WARNING! Potentially upsetting info contained within this post. Skip if you do not want to read disgusting forensic WAGs
It’s highly unlikely a baby would survive the death of the mother by more than absolutely maximum 15-20 minutes. I’m talking full-term here- it would be far less time for a less developed fetus. Oxygen is supplied via the umbilical cord to the child. Obviously, if the mother stops breathing, so does the baby. Stored oxygen might be present in higher quantities and a baby/fetus does need less oxygen than an adult to maintain basic functioning. As horrible as it is, when the oxygen supply runs out the child will most likely drown in the amniotic fluid.
As to the expulsion of the fetus from the body, this is actually very common in women who die during the third trimester. It is frequently remarked upon with horror and awe in old texts about supernatural occurrences. As a body decomposes, gas build-up within the abdomen is extensive, often bloating a corpse to twice or even three times its size in life. (This is why it’s very hard to dispose of a body in water.) The pressure will cause a near to or full-term fetus to be expelled through the vagina. The reason internal organs are not (usually) affected in this way is because they are more “firmly attached” within the abdomen itself.
If these bodies are those of Laci and her son, then I hope at least her family will find some measure of peace knowing at least where she is. If not, then someone out there is missing a daughter/mother/sister/friend, and it’s horrible and tragic either way. However, it’s a pretty amazing coincidence that Laci disappears close to full-term in the same general area and now a woman’s body and that of a fetus washes up. From what I’ve heard, most sources are agreeing the body was wearing maternity clothing and was “obviously pregnant”. What thisis based on, I couldn’t say, but it leads me to believe the body was not completely skeletonized. Even if the head and limbs are missing, good DNA samples should be obtainable from the spinal cord.
Terrible as it sounds, in a way I am hoping this turns out to be Laci. I never thought there was much chance of her being found alive, and now maybe her family can at least know the truth, and justice may still prevail. Needless to say, even if it’s not her, I’m hoping they catch whoever did this and nail him straight to the wall.
Any word on where Scott Peterson might be, or how he has responded to this news?
Well…if the alluvial forensics expert they are bringing in can nail down the time she first entered the water to around the last week of December, that would be pretty damning. And if any bruising patterns can still be detected that fit the size and shape of his hands, he would probably be toast in a competent prosecutor’s hands.
Assuming, of course, that it is her. According to one news report, there are four missing pregnant California women at this time, although it didn’t say where in the state they disappeared or how close to term they were.