In dwelling on the subject of maternal mortality. How many died in the past? Your guesses please!

[shagmundfreud]

...... how many do you think? For every 100 pregnancies.

I'm thinking in the days before

antibiotics
scans
forceps
caesarean section
blood transfusions

and at a time when rickets wasn't uncommon and where many women had experienced inadequate nutrition in childhood and adulthood.

Your guesses please.

This is a reasonable discussion to have. But not with an OP who thinks it's "fun".

Op, I think your question is a good and valid one - in the face of the rise in c-sections (which is most liekly because of the medicalization of childbirth), it's worth looking at how bad it was before medical advances (and I'm not saying it's the only ting, because plenty of homebirths are fine and low risk, but have the added advantage of medical backup should it be needed)

however, I think that you should ask for this thread to be deleted and start one up again, with your question worded less "fun" - it's a serious question, and it wshould be given serious consideration, and room for debate, but I think people are taking offence because of the way you're putting it across.

"OP are you driving at the fact that many of us who feel we needed a c-section to survive our children's births are mistaken and we probably would have made it in the past? "

I thought it might be driving at the opposite, how many mother's would have died when some people will insist childbirth is totally natural and the involvement of medical professionals is what's wrong with the birthing process.

I think I've heard the figure 1-in-13 before, but I must say this is quite a peculiar thread.

Fascinated by the weirdly angry and defensive responses about what is actually simply the history of childbirth.

What about if I'd asked about how many people in the past died from appendicitis?

this is a good article

I think the problem lies in the way that you phrased your OP.

You're pretty insensitive OP to not be faintly remorseful at upsetting posters who may have been rather intimately involved with the concept of maternal mortality. Air enough to post it without thinking, but have a for accusing people of catsbum faces for finding your 'fun' take on it offensive.

But asking us to guess in a light hearted way is not very "serious" or respectful imo.

Maternal death does not make a fun guessing game. Also, you have posted this on Mumsnet where some posters may have experience of traumatic birth and emergency procedures.

I am somewhat interested in the answer and your point but you have been very insensitive in your approach.

Hence the cat bums mouths.

Thankyou for your answer LeBof

Sorry - those of you who are frothing about the mouth about me using the word 'fun' - really, lighten up. I'm sure you know that I'm not laughing about mothers dying.

I'm interested in people's perception of birth.

I think less people die of appendicitis than childbirth OP but either way guessing how people died is always a subject that will upset some people.

Was that a 'sorry' OP?

Although it was a bit of a teenage one really.

my son and i would have died without a c section he was breech and there was no way of turning him. i don't get the point in this to be honest. it is not just birth but simple medical treatments that saved new borns when in the past they would have died. my mother lost a little boy before she had me and my sister, he died at a few days old. my Nan lost a baby boy when he was a few days old.
there many factors to consider in child birth death rate for example, untreated sti, poverty, disease, medication that was not safe for pregnant mothers. so i don't know the exact numbers but i guess it would be fairly high.

I'm quite angry I hate it when people refuse to acknowledge that they have hurt people, both in rl and here.

Are you incluing all of the women who died of infections because physicians didn't wash their hands? It's my understanding that maternal mortality rates dropped when hand washing became commonplace. Do you include that as medical intervention or not?

1900, about 5 women died for every 1000 pregnancies. Today, thats about 5 per 100, 000 in th UK I think

I think that there was a bit of a peak in early Victorian times, when doctors took over a lot of births, and were spreading germs from previously treating sick people. They were an unsanitary bunch, doctors.

Read "Safer Childbirth?" by Marjorie Tew.

She's a statistician and has a lot of answers.
Main conclusion is that effect of vastly improved maternal nutrition generation on generation is far greater than effect of antenatal care/hospitalised birth.

I am just back from the People's Palace in Glasgow and if I remember correctly, it said that in the 1930s, something like 1 in 325 women died in childbirth in Glasgow, now the figure is 1 in 3000. Very sobering statistics...

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that 100 years ago 1 in 10 women died in childbirth, not sure what that would be in terms of percentage of pregnancies.

1 in 10 isn't correct. That's far too huge a proportion.

When, in the past, are we talking about. Obviously mortality rates will be higher after the industrial revolution than at other times because so many people had poor health then due to living conditions.

Problem is, there are huge differences between the 'past' and the 'past'.

I believe I once heard the figure '1 in 5' - referring to maternal death, today, in some very poor African country. (It might have been '1 in 9', with '1 in 5' referring to the number of children not making it to age 5. I do realise it is a huge difference, but both are terrible figures.) I would accordingly guess that in the dark European past, it might have been similar.

I do think there is a difference, though, between 'no medical intervention' on the one hand, 'bad health to start with' on the other hand, and thirdly, 'actively misogynistic policies' including no access to health care, education, information for women, and men deciding on when women, perceived as low in value, are worth making an effort for. You also got medical intervention being counter-productive when doctors didn't used to wash their hands after working in the mortuary before treating post-natal women.

I do not doubt that sometimes, people have 'unnecessary' c-sections. It is absolutely clear however, that more women survive giving birth in the Western world today than used to in the past. Lots more.

A couple of years ago it was 1 in 8 in Sierra Leone. I could imagine it being a similar proportion within deprived areas but not across the country as a whole, more like 1 in 100

iirc the peak was 1888 or thereabouts, and things improved because of welfare acts which started improving nutrition.