Patrick Bouvier Kennedy

Background In August 1963, the 34-year-old Jacqueline Kennedy was in her third year as first lady and in the third trimester of her fifth pregnancy. Kennedy had suffered a miscarriage in 1955, followed the next year by a stillborn girl whom the Kennedys planned to name Arabella after a ship with that name. Two healthy children followed: Caroline in 1957 and John Jr. in 1960. As John had also been premature, Kennedy asked her obstetrician, John W. Walsh, to accompany her when she and her children spent the summer in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The nearby Otis Air Force Base Hospital had also prepared a suite for her in case it was necessary.

On the morning of Wednesday, August 7, Jackie took Caroline and John Jr. for a pony ride in Osterville, Massachusetts. While the children were riding, Kennedy felt labor pains. Walsh was summoned, and they were taken by helicopter to Otis Air Force Base.

President Kennedy was at the White House at the time. August 7 was the 20th anniversary of the day the United States Navy had rescued him in World War II after he had spent five days marooned on an island in the Pacific. Kennedy had been in command of Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 when it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, killing two of his crew. His heroics had helped launch his political career. PT-109 and August 7 were never far from his mind, and he kept a scale model of the boat on a shelf in the Oval Office and each day used a metal tie clasp shaped like a torpedo boat, with PT 109 stamped across its bow. The infant's birth weight was . He was the first child born to a serving U.S. President and First Lady since the 19th century (third overall after Esther (1893–1980) and Marion Cleveland (1895–1977) during the second presidency of Grover Cleveland).

Shortly after birth, Kennedy developed symptoms of hyaline membrane disease (HMD), later called infant respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS). It was detected by breathing difficulties within minutes. The president arrived, saw his son in distress, and sent for a chaplain. The infant was quickly baptized, named Patrick after his great-grandfather Patrick Joseph Kennedy (1858–1929), and was given the middle name of Bouvier after his mother's maiden name. Led by Dr. Drorbaught, who stayed awake the entire time, the hospital tried everything possible to save the infant's life. The baby was given hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) in which he was placed in a hyperbaric chamber filled with 100% oxygen and pressurized to greater than one atmosphere. At the time, the treatment was revolutionary; The New York Times described it as "one of the newest interests of medical researchers."

Death and funeral Patrick Kennedy died at 4:04 a.m. on August 9 "despite a desperate medical effort to save him" and had lived for 39 hours and 12 minutes. At the time of the infant's death, the president was outside the room with the hyperbaric chamber with his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Siblings Caroline, then five years old, and John Jr., two years old, did not attend.

Legacy Kennedy's death made 1963 a "pivotal year" for neonatology, then still a relatively new field, according to an examination of its history in the journal Neonatology. In a review of advances in clinical medicine, researcher Thor Hansen observed that the "medical profession did not have the tools to help" Kennedy, "the newborn son of arguably the most powerful man in the world," but 50 years later, treatment of his condition would be considered routine, with survival expected.

The parents were deeply affected by the death of their son. Secret Service agent Clint Hill recalled the couple having "a distinctly closer relationship" that was visible after the child's death. White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger believed that the couple had been brought closer by the presidency but even more so by the child's death.