200 years ago would you have died during pregnancy/childbirth?

[LynetteScavo]

I had a kidney infection when pregnant with DC1, then a long and difficult birth, with a happy ending after a ventouse delivery. I've sometimes wondered if I would have lived through the kidney infection if I hadn't had IV antibiotics. I have no idea how the birth would have panned out.

I suspect an awful lot of us wouldn't be here now if we had babies 200 years ago.

exotic - the average number of children was about 7 in the 1800's.

Those women who farmed their babies out to wet nurses would have had much bigger families. Apparently aristocratic women sometimes had the largest numbers of children because of this - some poor godforsaken wretches had as many as 18 pregnancies, sometimes more.......

But women who lived on the land and who breastfed well into toddlerhood would have had more reasonable family spacing due to the contraceptive affect of lactation.

A lot of working class women married later as well because of a lack of money.

I have done my family history back to then and I come from a long line of women who had far more than 7! They were farm labourers -on the whole- and the majority lived to adulthood. I also don't think the contraceptive affect of lactation was quite what it was made out to be either!

yes = would have died with DS1...bled to death probably if I'd managed to ever get him out. But then I wouldn't have been born as my DM would have died with undiagnosed twins at 41 weeks (and after an EMCS I needed incubation for a week)

Not sure, ds was a footling breech so it's very possible he would have died during delivery. Not sure about me, but who knows what nasty infection I could have picked up.

I think we are a very fertile family. My mum did extensive research into our family tree and all the married women pre 1950s seem to have had 6 or 7 children and survived the births (we know this because the women died aged 50+ so childbirth would be unlikely as a cause of death).

Many children did not live to grow up, as was common then, but there were few newborn deaths and the steady 3yr rate that the children were produced indicates few hidden miscarrages or stilbirths, as a 3yr gap is normal for a breastfeeding mother in those less well-nourished times.

I think the fact that on the whole women started their families in their 20's and had a lot more exercise than we have today helped matters.

Most people didn't make it through the first 5 yrs of life.

If you did, you'd probably be pretty hardy and have a better chance of getting through childbirth, unless you were attended by a doctor - they didn't understand hygiene and caused many, many cases of childbed fever.

All in all, pretty glad I live here and now.

DTs would have died without laser surgery for TTTS at 19 weeks. I went on to have a placental abruption which would have killed me, but wouldn't have got that far without the surgery so I may have survived.

Yes, I would have died. We had an infection during labour, turned OP with a cervical lip, then emergency section. Had we had no antibiotics we would have gotten sepsis and died.

On the flip side... I nearly died as a result of modern medicine, when the surgeon made a mistake in my emcs. The emcs probably saved my dd's life though. Not sure how it would have worked out 200 years ago.

Zombie thread, but 200 years ago a good number of women died, who would live now, because doctors were too pig-headed to wash their hands before attending women. Semmelweis, (and others) helped to put a stop to this practice.

I think I would have been fine as both dds born with no intervention but I may have had complications after dd2 as I chose not to have the injection for the placenta and then it didn't come.
I ended up with the injection an hour later and it came soon after so it's possible I may not have been able to deliver the placenta on my own 200 years ago and ended up with infection etc.

I would have died with DS1 - had pre-eclampsia and he had IUGR.

Mind you, I wouldn't have been alive to even get pregnant without modern medicine. Appendicitis and quinsy would have seen me off long before.

I don't go into labour and I don't dilate, so quite possibly!

I think I would have survived though DD1 may have been stillborn or died of an infection as my waters were leaking for 24 hours before labour and I was induced. If I got through that DD2 and DS1 would have been fine and me too as births very easy.

It would have been more painful but we were all fine with non-intervention births.

Neither DS nor I would have survived I suspect, I didn't dilate and DS was in distress, so if he had emerged chances would have been significant damage. Then ec wound became seriously infected at the klaxon mega sporn level. So even at the time of WWll we might not have got through.

I don't think modern medicine or technology played much of a part in either of my births so I don't doubt that if I had my 2 labours 200 years ago both births wouldn't be much different.certainly wouldn't have died

Yes, my son and I would both have died during my labour with him (unless someone decided to hell with it and cut him out of me). Either way, I would have endured a great deal of pain before I died.

Up until delivery, my conception and pregnancy were really easy and I can actually remember thinking how well I'd have done as a wife of Henry VIII or similar - sailing through pregnancy. Hah!

Chances are many of the women posting who wouldn't have died on the face of it (no big medical issues - normal routine births) might also have died from infections 200 years ago.

I am very very grateful for modern medicine.

But then again if we lived 200 years ago, DH might have been dead at age 11 from appendicitis. So maybe I'd have married a man who didn't carry the gene for the very large head and I might have done better and survived.

I would have died at birth, I was very very stuck and had to be resuscitated after forceps delivery so would never have got to be giving birth myself.

Dc1 would probably have suffered brain damage due to lack of oxygen if it wasn't for the fact that medicine allows babies to be delivered very quickly when necessary.

Dc2 would have been fine but I don't think I would have survived the infection that came afterwards.

Eyeofthestorm, 50 years ago your DS2 would have had one of the first shunts. My SIL had one of the first ones fitted into a baby. It's been replaced several times since though.

We would have both died. DS and his gigantic shoulders became stuck. Resulted in a lot of blood loss for me and lots of distress for him. I had the time from the delivery room to the theatre to have a natural birth of they were knocking me out and cutting him out because I was too exhausted to push anymore.

Three days of labour tend to do that to you

yep
twas induced she got stuck and was twisted. also had cord round here neck.
I had an epistomy and a 3rd degree tear lost so much blood I had to have 3 blood transfusions. and emergency reconstructive surgery.
toast and tea was nice after though