Camren Baker napped in the living room on the day he turned 6 months old while his mother, Jaime Swan, 20 years old and 12 weeks pregnant, smoked a cigarette on her apartment’s fire escape, shooing her 4-year-old nephew away from the smoke. Doctors, Swan was explaining, had told her that Camren might have permanent blind spots after being beaten by Swan’s now ex-boyfriend, but otherwise he would be fine. Two days later Swan took Camren for a routine check-up that ended in the emergency room.

Camren had already spent five days in the hospital, beginning on May 17 after Steven Waterman allegedly beat him, inflicting some 25 bone fractures amidst other hemorrhages and bruises. Three weeks later he spent another week in the hospital, this stay ending with surgery to drain fluid from his swelling skull.

Doctors told Swan again that her baby would recover, but he will have to visit a neurologist for follow-ups. It’s not yet apparent if he will develop blind spots from his beating as doctors suggested he might.

While his accused abuser, Steven Waterman, 19, sits in jail waiting trial, however, Camren remains in a network of low-income family, friends, ex-boyfriends and other enemies that is equal to the type of situation experts describe as ripe for child abuse and other problems.

“It’s stress…”

Camren’s mother is now pregnant with her third child, this one fathered by Waterman. Waterman also has his own 5-month-old daughter by another Westbrook girl, 17 years old. Camren’s supposed father, Shawn Baker, also 19, is not in jail, but he is currently waiting for trial on 11 charges relating to a relationship he had with a 14-year-old. The charges include sexual assault of a minor and sexual exploitation of a minor.

“Unless God does something with these charges,” Shawn Baker said, “I’m going (to jail) for at least a year.”

Baker has most recently been told by another ex-girlfriend that she is “two weeks late.” He is planning on purchasing a pregnancy test.

Between Baker, who faces a maximum sentence of 40 years for all charges, and Waterman, who is facing a maximum sentence of 25 years, there are two babies plus two fetuses – assuming Baker’s ex is indeed pregnant – who can expect to be raised by their single mothers if their fathers are found guilty of the crimes they’ve been charged with.

Swan would be responsible for two of those children: her son Camren and the child she carries by Waterman. But Swan is a mother of three, her first child being the 3-year-old Emma Fogg, fathered by Chris Fogg, whom Swan is no longer with in part due to a domestic violence issue.

“There is increased abuse wherever there is stress in families,” said Dr. Lawrence Ricci, Director of the Spurwink Child Abuse Program. “Poverty increases abuse. Unemployment increases abuse. Domestic violence increases abuse. Substance abuse increases abuse.”

While dealing with the criminal, medical, and social fallout from the abuse of her baby Camren, Swan is on the job-hunt, attending classes at Andover College, having rent problems and other issues with Westbrook Housing, and suddenly finding herself pregnant by a man behind bars. Swan’s simple feeling is that these are just things she has to deal with.

Asked what it’s like to be such a young father Shawn Baker said simply: “It’s stress.”

As for Waterman, he declined a request for an interview, his mother canceled an interview, and the mother of his 5-month-old daughter did not return messages.

Ricci said for every child abuse case in the news, he sees a dozen. Maine saw over 3,000 cases substantiated child abuse or neglect cases in 2005.

More evidence of abuse; “Things are getting too tangled now”

Beyond the network of two fathers facing maximum sentences of a score or more each, when Camren was taken to the hospital it was determined the baby had injuries prior to the May 17 incident when Waterman allegedly violently shook and “slammed” the baby on a bed at Swan’s Westbrook apartment on Main Street, according to a police report. The report described bruises found on Camren’s brain, some fresh, some “days to weeks old,” according to the police report. Swan also said there were two old fractures found.

No charges have been filed for the previous injuries. The police report does not indicate the injuries were abuse. The Department of Health and Human Services has declined to even confirm if they have a case regarding Camren Baker. Baker is, according to Swan, still in her custody.

Shawn Baker had accused Swan of the baby’s earlier injuries, citing bruises he had found previous the incident. He then later reneged on his word and decided it must have been Waterman who inflicted the earlier injuries. Meanwhile, Swan accused Baker and his mother, Pam, who often took care of the baby.

The Westbrook Detective involved in the case, John Desjardins, said there is no evidence anyone but Steven Waterman was the cause of any injuries.

Meanwhile, the human services department is conducting family mediation between Swan and Baker as a script from Jerry Springer seems to unfold.

“They’re talking about supervised visitations, but I didn’t do anything wrong.” Baker said. “Things are getting too tangled now.”

“I don’t want (Baker) alone with Camren,” Swan said, not trusting many people since the man she knew for six years allegedly abused her baby.

Swan’s younger brother, Bobby Swan, 18, also thinks the Bakers have something to do with the old injuries found on the baby, and said the baby would come back from the Baker’s home with rashes.

On the Sunday before the May 17 incident allegedly with Waterman, Swan said she found bruises on the baby’s legs and under his arms.

But then again, in an interview on May 22, Shawn Baker, too, said he found bruising under Camren’s arms, and “every time I get him back he has rashes.”

And then comes “I honestly think Camren should be with Shawn’s mom,” from Paige Payer, 18, the baby’s godmother.

Payer, one of the few individuals involved without any children of her own, just graduated from Portland High School and is going to Southern Maine Technical College on a scholarship. She has known Jaime Swan for about a year and a half, and was very close with her while the two lived together for a short while. Payer has known Shawn Baker for five years.

Payer said Swan never hurt the children, though she includes a caveat that Swan has often left Camren in a wet diaper, told her 3-year-old daughter Emma Fogg to go to bed while blasting a radio and often drinks around the children. She also said Fogg “has really seen too many things.” Payer said she has seen Fogg go to a pole and begin a sort of strip tease dance.

“She needs help,” Payer said of the child. Payer said Swan “can’t handle” being a mother.

“I definitely think she’s not mature enough,” Payer said.

And while Bobby Swan said his sister rarely drinks, both Shawn Baker and Paige Payer said she drinks often. The accusations come full circle, however, with 18-year-old Bobby Swan and Shawn Baker all being accused by one person or another of substance abuse issues.

If the scheduled paternity test comes back confirming Shawn Baker as Camren Baker’s father, Shawn Baker said he’s prepared to pay child support, “but I won’t give her cash. I won’t pay for her alcohol.”

The words of Dr. Ricci echo, even after the alleged abuser is behind bars.

Camren Baker – lost among responsible adults

Bobby Swan, Jaime Swan and Aimee Doane think the Bakers and Payer are wrong in all of what they say. Evelyn Blanchard, Executive Director of Mission Possible Teen Center in Westbrook, and a former employee of the Department of Health and Human Services, said it doesn’t really matter who said what.

“The adults can fight as much as they want about who did what. Nobody was protecting that baby,” said Blanchard. “Whoever didn’t injure the baby didn’t protect the baby.”

Blanchard isn’t specifically involved in the Baker case – no officials who are involved can speak about the case because of confidentiality – but she speaks from her experience at her teen center that, in part, deals with teen pregnancy issues.

Westbrook’s teen pregnancy rate is about 54 pregnancies per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19, compared to the state’s overall rate of about 37 per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19. Because of Westbrook’s elevated rate, Blanchard hopes to receive a grant next year to do teen pregnancy prevention.

Blanchard said young people who conceive children simply don’t understand the full extent of what it means to take responsibility, responsibility being the exact terms both Swan and Baker used to describe their feelings after finding out they were to become parents.

“I told myself I had to take responsibility for my own actions,” said Swan, looking back on when she found out she was pregnant at 17 with her first child. Perhaps the most difficult aspect for Swan in finding out she was pregnant was that she was on birth control, and it didn’t work.

Swan’s second child came after she was told by doctors that a medical problem would prevent her from having children again. Then she became pregnant again.

Swan’s third child – the one she is pregnant with now – came again while she was on birth control.

Regardless of how it happened, Swan said it was simply something she would have to deal with.

But for Blanchard, “They say they’re are going to step up to the plate, but they don’t understand what that means. Financially, emotionally it’s the hardest job in the world.”

“I really think that from an early age – I’m talking even beginning in elementary school, and in middle school, and throughout high school, – they need an education of what it really means to be a parent,” said Blanchard.

Blanchard said she thought the problem of a lack of education regarding pregnancy was a systemic one involving parents, education, and communities such as churches. And as teen parents get older, Blanchard said, the resources available to them dwindle.