death of mother and baby. are they related?

[rachelralph]

i have a lady who died 7th march 1909 from puerperal fever after childbirth. 5 days later her baby girl died of convultions. i have read all i can about the 'childbed fever' but cannot find any reference to it ever causing the child harm. were these two deaths related or was the family just truely unfortunate to lose mother and baby a few days apart for unrelted reasons?

[Marmalady]

So far as i know, childbed fever was usually caused by an infection due to poor hygienic conditions during & after the birth. It would be unlikely to directly cause convulsions in the baby in itself.
But as the mother had died the baby would be being fed artificially which coupled with the poor conditions of the home could have led to the baby getting ill and having a raised temperature which caused the convulsions

[Billyblue]

I'd second Marmalady's reply.

Unfortunately, we often find both mother and child not surviving childbirth in 'the good old days''

Dawn M

[Annie65115]

Infections in newborn babies can cause convulsions.

OTOH I think that the presence of infection would have been recognised by this period of history and that may have been mentioned as a cause of death if present.

[rachelralph]

i have both certificates the mothers says puerperal fever and the childs just says convultions. i suppose it did happen mother and baby dying for different reasons. its just so sad that the mother died and then 5 days later the baby died for something compeltely different.

sadly this was a hospital birth and death too. i know times hav changed in 100 years but i thought by the 1900's hospitals were becoming much cleaner. that said women still die of it today, and we have much cleaner hospitals. as far as i know it isnt a hygiene problem now a days though