WTHR 13 News
Sandra Chapman
May 7, 2018
It's a case so rare and so shocking that the United States Army refuses to talk about what happened to Pvt. Ashley Shelton.
The 20-year old private from Indiana gave birth to a near full-term baby boy in 2012.
She was in Afghanistan – in a combat zone.
Why did the military put a pregnant soldier into a war zone?
With her permission, 13 Investigates obtained Pvt. Shelton's medical files, and what they revealed takes the questions in her case to even greater heights.
A series of pre-deployment pregnancy tests were positive or indecisive. But the doctor involved in her case noted that he didn't "feel" like she was pregnant and he signed off on her deployment.
When Ashley was in Afghanistan she was shocked to learn she was giving birth to a baby boy inside of an Army latrine.
She was assigned to an aviation unit and worked around dangerous chemicals and helicopter exhaust fumes. She exercised and wore heavy body armor every day. She took malaria pills and had both anthrax and typhoid vaccines.
Exposures to those vaccines, Pvt. Shelton now believes, impacted her son Benjamin. He has trouble walking and suffers from developmental delays. read more here
