People forget how things were a good century ago

[unicorn]

It's been barely over a century since 10% of childbirths ended up with the mother dying. Because it's so rare these days, some seem quite unaware how dangerous it used to be to give birth naturally. 😪

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/food-influencer-stacey-hatfield-dies_n_68f7a0cfe4b0dbac45910c1b?fbclid=IwY2xjawNmUxVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFKbEFZUGtaWWlqTG05ZEdrAR6t37pgMqAvhOOwuhySw3LQLyG_Steo4TUGcAeFygKZcKNXml_nGW63cuD8kA_aem_enI77E6npsgggIdqjMvWug

"An Australian food influencer has died after giving birth to her first son at home. Stacey Hatfield’s husband, Nathan Warnecke, announced in a touching tribute on Instagram Monday that she died on Sept. 29. “Its with heavy heart that i share with you the unexpected passing of my beautiful wife, soul mate and best friend, Stacey Warnecke (Hatfield),” Warnecke wrote on Hatfield’s “Natural Spoonfuls” Instagram page..."

[PeterRS]

Known as puerperal fever, this was a common cause of death after childbirth if you go even further back than a century. Two of Henry VIII's wives Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr and a host of other well-known women thereafter died a as result shortly after giving birth. Sources indicate that from the 17th to 19th centuries most such cases resuled from the doctors themselves through lack of handwashing when germs on the hands were not understood. Early in the 19th century various doctors in different countries, including a Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis, realised that childbirths at home had far fewer instances and linked washing hands with a particular solution significantly reducing deaths in hospitals. This theory was roundly condemned by the medical fraternity of the day, yet Semmelweiss reduced deaths in his Vienna clinic from 20% to 2%. So ridiculed was he that he suffered a breakdown and ended his life in a mental institution. By the 1930s and the development of antibiotics, deaths became much more rare.

I only became aware of this, partly as a result of coming from a medical family, but also seeing a movie in the 1960s that dealt with this subject. I have tried to locate its name on search engines but without success.

[unicorn]

21 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Known as puerperal fever, this was a common cause of death after childbirth if you go even further back than a century...

They didn't disclose the cause of death. I suspect it may have been an uncontrolled bleed, given the rapid deterioration (an infection could probably have made it to the hospital in time). If the gravida (woman giving birth) was even more foolhardy and didn't get prenatal care, eclampsia could be another common cause of rapid death. I remember hearing in the hospital where I did my residency training that a gravida without prenatal care died in the elevator on the way up to the delivery ward. She had a massive seizure which left her brain basically exploding in the skull. 🫣