About: Death by Childbirth   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Parental Abandonment occurs with an overwhelming frequency in fiction. On top of that, an overwhelming number of victims lose their mothers during childbirth. So sad, so tragic, so heart-wrenching... such a goldmine for a plot device. Nothing impossible about it, but the statistics are ridiculously high, especially for any industrialized nations. Although, as Jane Austen observed, it wasn't used ridiculously often even before modern medicine.) See Her Heart Will Go On, the sort-of inversion of this -- he dies, she lives. Examples of Death by Childbirth include:

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  • Death by Childbirth
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  • Parental Abandonment occurs with an overwhelming frequency in fiction. On top of that, an overwhelming number of victims lose their mothers during childbirth. So sad, so tragic, so heart-wrenching... such a goldmine for a plot device. Nothing impossible about it, but the statistics are ridiculously high, especially for any industrialized nations. Although, as Jane Austen observed, it wasn't used ridiculously often even before modern medicine.) See Her Heart Will Go On, the sort-of inversion of this -- he dies, she lives. Examples of Death by Childbirth include:
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  • Parental Abandonment occurs with an overwhelming frequency in fiction. On top of that, an overwhelming number of victims lose their mothers during childbirth. So sad, so tragic, so heart-wrenching... such a goldmine for a plot device. Nothing impossible about it, but the statistics are ridiculously high, especially for any industrialized nations. Although, as Jane Austen observed, it wasn't used ridiculously often even before modern medicine.) May be used to set up a tense family situation where the father or older siblings unreasonably blame the youngest for "murdering their mother" and turn him/her into The Unfavourite. Can double as Death by Sex for a particularly Anvilicious Aesop. Often used in Fan Fiction for shows where Parental Abandonment is never explained. Very often a Truth in Television for at least 70% of the world's population. According to the UNFPA in 2005, while the lifetime risk of maternal death for people in 'developed regions' is 1 in 7300, the average worldwide is 1 in 92, rising as high as 1 in 22 women for Sub-Saharan Africa (source). Note that the per-pregnancy risk is lower, since many of these cultures also have high birth rates, since they also tend to have high infant mortality rates. In fact the use of it as a plot device might be Older Than Feudalism, since unless his mother died in childbirth, the protagonist could be burdened with at least six siblings. See Her Heart Will Go On, the sort-of inversion of this -- he dies, she lives. Incidentally, dying in childbirth is no fun at all. Stories that neglect to mention fever, screaming, blood, and agony that lasts hours or even days... were probably written by the childless or by those with no medical knowledge. A few examples are included here. It should be noted that some deaths in childbirth do occur much more quickly than that - a woman with uterine atony can hemorrhage to death in minutes without emergency medical intervention. May be a set up for the Wicked Stepmother or Promotion to Parent. If someone other than the mother or baby dies, it's Birth-Death Juxtaposition. Examples of Death by Childbirth include:
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