Hi, folks, Be advised: The following is a rather graphic description of how to tell the cause of death after child-birth. As a rule of thumb, one can make an educated guess at the cause of death after childbirth by the time elapsed between the birth of the child and the death of the mother. The thing which causes almost immediate death is severe hemorrhage, and this can be caused by a number of things: tears in the vaginal or uterine wall, ruptured uterus, placenta acreta (the placenta sticks to the wall of the uterus and just bleeds), prolapsed uterus (the uterus is expelled from the woman's body during birth), and others. After three days, infection becomes a factor, and a woman who lost a lot of blood can succumb quickly to an infection. The longer a woman survives after childbirth, with death occurring within six weeks, the more likely it is that she had an infection, so called "child-bed fever," rather than great blood loss. The last great cause of death within six weeks of a birth is blood clots in the leg veins: deep vein thrombosis, also called "milk-leg." The woman who lost a lot of blood may be too weak to get out of bed for a while, and this gives the chance for clots to form. Later, when the clots break up, they may cause blockage to the arteries of the heart, lungs, brain, or any other major organ, and may result in sudden death from heart attack, stroke, or pulmonary infarction, etc. One of my ancestors apparently had consumption (tuberculosis), and the child-bearing contributed to her death a month after the birth of her daughter, my gr-gr grandmother. It is worth noting that a six-hour labor and delivery require about the same amount of exertion as that expended by a professional football player, playing an entire game of football. Sarah, in soggy Texas > [Original Message] > From: Bobbi Chapman <bochap@worldnet.att.net> > To: <CTNEWHAV-L@rootsweb.com> > Date: 8/30/03 8:55:56 PM > Subject: [CTNEWHAV] utero gestation > > I checked some medical internet sites; all agreed that "utero gestation" or "in-utero gestation" refers to a fetus growing in its mother's uterus. The term may have been used on a death certificate to indicate delicately that the death was related to pregnancy. It does not give the exact cause of death - bleeding, infection, other. > Bobbi > > > ==== CTNEWHAV Mailing List ==== > Need to reach Colleen, the discussion coordinator? Send her an email > at <ladyaudris@earthlink.net>. > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237