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Original poster

Would you still be alive if you lived in the 16th century?

419 replies

LittleMosIron · 30/12/2024 20:49

I would have died aged 7 from appendicitis. If not then childbirth or an infected tooth would have finished me off in my early 20's.

OP posts:
catphone · 31/12/2024 00:47

No i wouldn’t be

SarahAndQuack · 31/12/2024 00:49

Allthehorsesintheworld · 31/12/2024 00:46

Oh they would. I used to read death records at Uni ( for my course, not for fun)
From ourworldindata.com
Sweden is a country with particularly good historical demographic data. It was the first country to establish an office for population statistics: the Tabellverket, founded in 1749. Going back to their records, we can look at the child mortality rate at the time. During the first three decades of the existence of the statistical office — the period from 1750 to 1780 — their data tells us that 40% of children died before the age of 15.1
During the same period, the mortality rate was about 45% in France, and in Bavaria, about half of all children died. At that time, fertility rates were high, with the average couple having more than 5, 6, or even 7 children, which meant that most parents saw several of their children die.2

Edited
Show quote history

I know Sweden industrialised later than England, and France as well, but I'd be interested to know whether or not this is part of the same rise in infant mortality that we see here? In some ways the sixteenth century was a safer place to be than, say, the nineteenth - it's not all steady progress towards better healthcare, is it?

(I'm also on the side of 'death rates were not 100% shocker'.)

SarahAndQuack · 31/12/2024 00:50

(Mind you, I wrote that parenthesis and then thought, Baldrick-style, that actually, the one thing we can be sure about the sixteenth century was that everyone definitely died in the end. Just, perhaps not for want of prophylactic antibiotics or a big baby.)

CurrentHun · 31/12/2024 00:55

Nope, nor my mum so I’d never have been born

OnlyHereForTheChristmasBoard · 31/12/2024 00:59

harrietm87 · 30/12/2024 22:29

I’d have made it to 37 and then died 4 weeks ago due to massive blood loss during a miscarriage.

Sorry to hear this and hope you are as OK as you can be in these circumstances.

YourGladSquid · 31/12/2024 01:01

I would 100% have died in childbirth. It almost got me in the 00s with medical help, let alone the 1500s.

DressDilemma · 31/12/2024 01:05

I would have definitely died during childbirth. Had a massive haemorrhage while delivering my first DC, following which I spent several days in coma in the ICU. Just two months later I was again in ICU due to a septic shock from untreated mastisis.

WellsAndThistles · 31/12/2024 01:05

I would probably still be here, never needed any surgery and was lucky with straightforward childbirth.

1234567990qwerty · 31/12/2024 01:12

Most of us would have died as infants but those who did survive would definitely be dead by now.

PitchOver · 31/12/2024 01:43

Another likely childbirth death here. My son was completely stuck so I assume that probably would have been the end of me?

I wonder what the maternal death rate was in 1500s? Judging by this thread about 80%!

MaMisled · 31/12/2024 01:50

I'd have died a number of times!

terracottacountryfarm · 31/12/2024 01:58

I would have died in the womb as I wasn't able to get any food from the umbilical cord

ByHardyAquaFox · 31/12/2024 02:07

I do wonder this sometimes, and the answer is yes as I have always been blessed with a strong health with no major illnesses.
I am 44, so I guess I should consider myself lucky if I was living in that age.

redastherose · 31/12/2024 02:11

I'd probably still be around. My mum had easy labours and no complications and I've never broken anything or had any severe illnesses and had two straightforward quick vaginal deliveries with my dc with only gas and air so could have done it without if I'd had to. I did have chicken pox as an 8 year old but no treatment as my mum thought I had heat lumps until my sister got ill and I was past the infectious point by then so not even any time off school.

Aintnobodygottime · 31/12/2024 02:38

I suppose none of us know how bacterial infections would have played out without antibiotics but I can’t really believe the death rate from them was as high as some posters seem to think. But setting my own encounters with infection aside, I’d probably still be here. I had measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella (twice) and whooping cough as a child, none requiring any major medical intervention that I’m aware of, was born without any problems and gave birth without them either. No real illnesses.

Of course we’ve all in the UK benefitted from the absence of typhoid, smallpox and cholera in our lifetimes so even someone like me might have come a cropper that way. But plenty of people made it through life even back then.

Seacatt · 31/12/2024 02:50

My DM had her appendix removed while pregnant with me, so we both would have died.

aforasshole · 31/12/2024 03:02

I'd be kept in whatever the 16th century version of an asylum was. So I'd rather not have survived to be honest.

Doihavetogotoworkdotcom1 · 31/12/2024 03:28

I would’ve died of cervical cancer

HelpMeGetThrough · 31/12/2024 03:58

No, I would have died about 6 weeks ago. Strangulated hernia which then gave me a gangrenous bowel. Needed some pretty lengthy surgery to fix it all.

To be fair, it almost killed me 6 weeks ago.

4pmfireworks · 31/12/2024 05:00

Most of us on this thread are probably fully vaccinated, so that has to sway the odds somewhat. But ignoring that, I would have died giving birth to my eldest, and so would she. I also broke my leg badly as a child so even if that healed, I'd have still had a pretty limpy life on an unset leg.

user263758989 · 31/12/2024 05:46

Childbirth

RedRock41 · 31/12/2024 05:48

I’d be dead from Scarlet Fever early 20s. Then again (same with most MumsNutters 👌) many of us prolly would’ve been burned as heretic/witches long before that… likes of raising suspicions just by being strong, independent women refusing subservience (‘unnaturally’) thus challenging the fragile patriarchal ego/system
etc… 😉 🧙‍♀️ 🙋‍♀️

Fairyy · 31/12/2024 07:30

MadBlack · 30/12/2024 21:54

Well no, given life expectancy was about 30 with nothing being wrong?
But I'd be dead from either tonsillitis when i was 8 or 9, or from impacted wisdom tooth in early 20's or from needing a vacuum extraction giving birth.

Average life expectancy was mid 30s due to high mortality rates for babies and children. Lots of young women died in childbirth or soon after. They brought the average age down.

MissTrip82 · 31/12/2024 07:38

I’ve had nothing happen to me (in my 40s with no broken bones, operations, antibiotics or even fillings) but still can’t answer this because I’m vaccinated against a range of diseases that kill people and I use contraception to control my fertility,

FrenchFancie · 31/12/2024 07:43

Assuming all the childhood things I’m vaccinated against didn’t get me (or the plague which I think was around in the 1600s) I would have died in childbirth as I had a PPH - to be honest I did my best to die in the 2000s so I would have had no hope back then!!