Patrick Bouvier Kennedy

In 1955, Jacqueline Kennedy, better known as Jackie Kennedy, had suffered a miscarriage. The very next year, she lived through another tragedy when a stillborn baby was born to her.

Subsequently, she gave birth to two healthy children, Caroline, born in 1957, and John Jr., born in 1960.

In August 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy was 34 years old and had been the First Lady for almost three years. She was also in the third trimester of her fifth pregnancy. While she was pregnant with Patrick, owing to the fact that John Jr.’s was also a premature birth, she requested her obstetrician, John W. Walsh, to be with her when she spent the summer in Massachusetts’ Hyannis Port. A suite was also prepared at the nearby Otis Air Force Base Hospital, in case of an emergency.

On August 7, 1963, Jackie took her two children, Caroline and John Jr., for a pony ride in Osterville, Massachusetts. Jackie started feeling labor pains while the children were riding their ponies. Walsh was promptly called and the two of them were taken to the Otis Air Force Base, by helicopter.

Patrick Bouvier Kennedy was born on August 7, 1963, at the Otis Air Force Base Hospital in Massachusetts, United States. Jacqueline Kennedy delivered him by an emergency caesarian section. He was born prematurely by five and a half weeks.

Patrick was the first child born to a sitting American President and First Lady since the nineteenth century.

Soon after his birth, Patrick started showing symptoms of the ailment, hyaline membrane disease, or HMD. The disease, which incurs breathing troubles, is now called infant respiratory distress syndrome, or IRDS.

President John F. Kennedy, who was in the White House at the time of delivery, called a chaplain, upon arriving at the hospital and seeing his newborn child in distress. The baby was baptized by the chaplain. The name ‘Patrick’ was chosen in honor of his grandfather, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, and his great-grandfather, Patrick Joseph Kennedy. The Bouvier in his name was his mother’s maiden name.

While at the hospital, John F. Kennedy was allowed to wheel the child in an incubator to see his wife.

At the time his baby died, President Kennedy was outside the room with the hyperbaric chamber. Along with him, was his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline Kennedy was at the Otis Air Force Base Hospital, recovering from her C-section. She was administered a sedative, following which she slept until her husband flew in from Boston.

As for Jacqueline’s reaction to the death of her child, according to Pierre Salinger, the White House Press Secretary at the time, "Given the circumstances, her condition is satisfactory." President Kennedy, when he was photographed arriving at the Otis Air Force base after Patrick’s death, looked “grave and appeared tired,” according to The New York Times.

According to Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent, John and Jacqueline had “a distinctly closer relationship”, which became more pronounced in the aftermath of Patrick’s death. According to Pierre Salinger, the White House Press Secretary, the President and the First Lady became even close after Patrick’s death.

On August 10, 1963, a small funeral mass was held in a private chapel in Boston, for Patrick Bouvier Kennedy.