31/08/2026
Predictably, the parents of the baby who died in Lancaster County are unvaccinated Amish.
Author: Tom Bartlett.
--About a month ago, John and Anna became aware that measles was spreading in their community. At last count, Lancaster County has recorded 210 cases so far this year. Besides John, no one in the family had been vaccinated against the virus.
John told me heād heard from someone that this strain of measles wasnāt dangerous for pregnant women, but he wasnāt sure whether to believe it. (In fact, measles, regardless of the strain, can cause serious pregnancy complications.)
Anna, who was pregnant, worried about the effect measles might have on her baby, but she didnāt think she could avoid being exposed.
āI saw we canāt even get away from it because so many people have it,ā she told me.
Even if Anna had wanted to get vaccinated then, it would have been too late: The CDC recommends against giving the vaccine to pregnant women.
Sure enough, a few weeks ago, one of John and Annaās older children got sick. The rest of them soon followed. Two of the children became dehydrated and required IVs. Anna became extremely ill, at one point spiking a fever of 102 degrees.
She struggled to hold down food and fluids. For days, she could speak only in a whisper. On August 13, she was taken to a clinic to get an IV for dehydration.
The next day, she went into labor. Anna remembers being very weak. āI didnāt have a single piece of energy,ā she told me. The baby was delivered at a birthing center by the same midwife who had attended the births of Annaās other children and, remarkably, Annaās own birth.
The baby, who weighed seven pounds, was born a little after 5 p.m. on August 14. They knew right away that something was wrong: He had a pulse, but he wasnāt breathing. The midwife contacted paramedics, who arrived within minutes.
John recalled them giving the newborn oxygen and gentle chest compressions with two thumbs, to no avail. It was all over in less than half an hour. The paramedics told them that the county coroner would need to be contacted to take the body.
..What exactly happened to John and Annaās son remains unclear. A ruptured spleen is extremely rare in newborns in any circumstance, and so far the coroner hasnāt determined what could have caused it.
John and Anna told me they had no idea either. In fact, they hadnāt heard anything about a ruptured spleen until I mentioned the coronerās public comments to them; they simply knew that Anna had been sick, and then they had lost their child.
The family at the center of Pennsylvaniaās measles controversy tells their story.
