Maternity - Recap

Karen and Ethan are admiring their newborn daughter and picking names. She sits up despite the fact she hasn't eaten anything, and Ethan calls in Dr. Lim. He checks her and discovers the baby is lethargic. She then has convulsions and Len calls in a crash cart.



House is hanging out in the obgyn lounge watching soap operas and enjoying the food when Lim comes in. He talks about his patient and insists that the baby has a bowel obstruction but will be fine. Intrigued, House hauls Wilson to the nursery and tells him that Baby Hartig and Baby Lupino are both sick from a virus, in the same delivery room and with the same symptoms. Wilson notes that Baby Hartig has a bowel obstruction, but House points out that it was misdiagnosed. He goes to Cuddy and asks her to isolate the children and quarantine the maternity ward. Cuddy thinks House is just trying to avoid being bored and ignores his request.

House goes to his office and has his staff go to work. They start checking babies and confirm there are no apparent epidemics. House thinks it has spread to the next floor, and finds a baby with the same symptoms. Cuddy okays the quarantine and transfer patients to other hospitals. House and his team go into differential but are unable to determine anything. Cuddy starts to put a team together to swab surfaces, and House lets her despite the fact it'll take months. The team comes up with a resistant bacterial infection, but cultures will take 48 hours and the babies don't have that much time. House prescribes two drugs to cover the major infections, orders MRIs, and goes to the clinic for the time being.



The Hartigs watch as their baby is taken away for MRIs along with the others. They don't find anything, and Cameron tells the news to another set of parents, Kim Chen and Judy Lupino. Judy has an infection and wonders if she's responsible, but Cameron insists that she's not responsible. Afterward, Foreman notes that Cameron couldn't give them a solid answer, and she notes that it's hard to watch someone die than it is to die.

Cuddy has all of the med students swab surfaces, but they don't find anything.

House meets with a clinic patient, Jill, who is complaining of joint pains. He quickly discovers that she's pregnant. She insists that it's impossible because she has a birth control implant, but House notes that nothing is guaranteed. Jill admits that she had an affair, and House tells her to have the kid and her husband will never know.



Back in his office, the team tells House that the first two babies' kidneys are shutting down, and it's caused by the antibiotics. Either drug could cause the shutdown, so they have to take their best guess. House tells them to take one baby off of each medicine and conduct therapeutic treatment. Foreman objects, saying it will condemn one of the babies to die, but House insists that it's the only way they can save the other babies.

Cuddy calls House in to meet with the hospital attorney, who tells him to come up with a medical rationale for his treatment. House agrees to get the parents' consent, but the attorney warns that they have to be informed that each baby is getting different treatment. In response, House notes that he can't reveal another patient's treatment, and notes that two more babies are ill. The attorney still insists that they can't do it, but Cuddy tells House to do what he thinks is best.

Foreman and Cameron tell the parents about their treatment. Foreman admits the treatment is iffy. Cameron can only say they'll know if it'll work within 24 hours. As she goes, Wilson notes that she didn't tell them the truth, and she needs to prepare them for the death of their son. Cameron insists that nothing she could say would make a difference, and the best she can do is give the women a few hours of help.



Jill brings in her husband, Charlie, and asks House to check him for mono with a blood test, after she's convinced him he has mono. House plays along so they can do the paternity test.

Wilson checks with Cuddy, who still hasn't found any signs of contamination. It's clear she's getting upset.

Karen asks Chase if her daughter is getting better. She doubts that they're going to make it and talks about how her next-door neighbor split up with her husband after her daughter died in a car accident. As Chase tells her not to get ahead of herself, One of the babies flat-lines, and Karen comes in and demands answers. Chase tells her it's the other baby, which dies despite the team's best efforts as Kim and Judy look on. House tells them to double-cover the other babies with the remaining drug, and tells Cameron to tell Judy and Kim. When Cameron tries to get out of it, House tells Wilson to make sure she does her job. Wilson ends up having to tell them the bad news.



When House finds out, he blames Wilson for enabling him. Chase arrives to inform House that the Hartig baby is getting sick as well. Back in differential, the team speculates that it's some kind of superbug. However, House notes that the dead baby's BP was abnormally low, suggesting heart damage. He sends the team home and then goes to the morgue to conduct an autopsy on the Lupino baby.

In the morning, House shows the team that the baby had fibrosis of the heart. A virus is responsible, but there are hundreds of possibilities and they couldn't do another blood tests. They have to narrow it down to six possibilities, all the blood the babies could spare. They get it down to eight, and House wants to test the blood of one of the babies who wasn't infected. However, once they check the babies, they learn that they show signs of three infections, and the healthy baby tests positive as well. House realizes that they have their mother's antibodies, and the healthy child survived because his mother had the antibodies to survive the infection. Foreman goes to test the mothers, and they narrow it down Echo Virus 11. It's lethal in infants, and can cause heart damage. One company is developing an antiviral and they managed to obtain a sample.

As Chase and Cameron administer the antiviral, Cameron asks the Hartigs to hold their baby while the nurse changes the sheets. They contemplate their baby and hold hands, while Cameron looks on..



House calls over Foreman and asks him about Cameron. Foreman is surprised at his interest, and tells House that Cameron is handling everything. House then meets with Jill and tells her that her husband is the father. She thanks him for being so awesome and asks him to deliver the baby, and he refuses. As House leaves, he gets an idea.

Foreman checks on the babies and he and Chase confirm that the Hartig baby is recovering. Later, they bring the baby back to be with its parents.

House comes to see Cameron and notes that she's had a harder time than the rest. He figures that she's had too much experience with death, and concludes that she lost someone. Cameron says that he's a bastard and leaves. As she goes out, she sees the Hartigs leaving and smiles.

The next day, the quarantine is lifted. However, House still wants to find the cause, and notes that the virus is spread by humans. He figures that the shedder must have been symptomatic, but Cuddy would have noticed the babies didn't share any common personnel. As Wilson goes, House notices a volunteer who is coughing as she takes the teddy bears around to the rooms for the babies.



House is soon back in the obgyn lounge watching soap operas again. Lim comes in and tells him he's not supposed to be there, but House claims that he's handling Jill's pre-natal care... and she isn't due for five months.

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