• Question: Why did childbirth use to be so dangerous in "ye olden days"?

    Asked by henryjones to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 19 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 19 Nov 2012:

      I think the two main reasons for the mother to die after or during birth are:

      Extensive bleeding. No blood transfusions available.
      Childbed fever. It is a bacterial infection and was often fatal. It was often transmitted by the doctors not washing their hands after examinig other patients or even corpses. At that time it was not known that bacteria cause this disease and that doctors can transmitt it. And prevent transmission by washing their hands. If you are interested read more about Dr. Semelweis, who was the first to notice the connection between childbed fever, dirty hands and washing hands helps. An interesting story- unfortunately, no one listened to him for quite a while.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 19 Nov 2012:

      ‘allo Henry

      Childbirth was most dangerous in Victorian times. Before that it wasn’t easy, but people would stay in their own homes and keep fairly clean. In Victorian times people came to trust in doctors more, but the doctors didn’t know about germs (dumb, huh?) and so spread germs from sick patients to the healthy ones.

      Victorian hospitals sound pretty grim.

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 19 Nov 2012:

      Yup, childbirth in the olden days was pretty risky. At one time the maternal death rate was as high as 40% but thankfully people eventually listened to Dr Semelweis and things improved dramatically.

      What is sad these days is that something like 90% of maternal deaths occur in the developing world and the main reason is maternal haemorrhage. The WHO estimate that around 800 women die every day from complications during childbirth. If people in developing countries had better access to antenatal care before birth, skilled medical care during childbirth and better care immediately afterwards, these deaths would be reduced.

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