Vancouver mom 'overwhelmed' by homeless camp birth

The day after a harrowing pre-dawn birth inside a tent at a homeless camp along the Discovery Trail, both mother and baby girl were "doing great" at Southwest Washington Medical Center, a social worker said Thursday.

The 18-year-old mother is "extremely overwhelmed" right now and declining any immediate help from the public or to speak with the media, said Jessica Lightheart, community outreach director for Share, a nonprofit agency that helps the homeless in Southwest Washington.

The woman, whose name is not being released by authorities, was an outreach client at Share before the birth, Lightheart said.

Hailed by a friend's 911 call, emergency crews arrived at the camp just after 1 a.m. Wednesday to find the newborn - perhaps 15 minutes old - still attached by the umbilical cord, which they snipped.

Rescue workers rushed the baby out of the 35-degree weather and to the hospital, following with the mother after hacking a pathway through the brambles.

The illegal camp tucked in a dense thicket of blackberries under Highway 500 won't remain there for long: City crews are planning to clear it out.

Vancouver police and city public works employees will go through the camp, possibly issuing misdemeanor citations for camping and cleaning up debris, police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said.

Such cleanups are typically spurred by complaints or when discovered in other ways.

In this case, the sudden notoriety of the camp due to the unusual birth there brought it to the city's attention.

"There was a picture of the camp in the paper, and the hard reality of that is that (the camp) then gets cleaned up," public works spokeswoman Loretta Callahan said.

Hospital and state officials said Thursday that the woman and her child won't go without help.

Though he couldn't speak specifically about the teen mother's case due to federal privacy laws, medical center spokesman Ken Cole said that when a homeless woman gives birth at Southwest, she is immediately connected with a social worker.

From there, they work with places like Share, or Vida's Ark, a teen shelter. They also work to get a mother signed up for Medicaid.

Finally, a social worker from Washington Department of Social & Health Services will help her qualify for food stamps and cash assistance, he said.

"They would not leave the hospital without resources," Cole said.

A DSHS spokesman also spoke in general terms about how his agency might handle a child welfare case relating to a homeless parent.

"Homelessness in and of itself is not a matter of abuse or neglect," DSHS spokesman Thomas Shapley said. "We are called in or involved only if hospital medical staff or law enforcement determine the child was at risk."

Testing positive during a drug test or a severe lack of prenatal care could trigger such a referral to the state, he said.

Lightheart, of Share, said she was not aware of any substance abuse issues on the part of the new mother.

Without the woman's name, Shapley was unable to say whether she was referred to DSHS for investigation.

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Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com