Medieval Woman Gave Birth AFTER Her Death

A team of scientists in Italy have revealed that the 1,400-year-old remains of a woman and a fetus discovered in Bologna, is a rare case of a ‘coffin birth’, in which the pregnant woman gave birth to a baby after her death.

According to a new report published in World Neurosurgery, the tiny remains of a fetus of 38 weeks gestation were found between the legs of a woman found in a Medieval grave dated to the 7^th century AD in the town of Imola, Bologna.

The fetus was partially delivered with its head and upper body outside the pelvic cavity and the leg bones still inside it. Although possible that the woman died mid-birth, she had been purposefully buried, so it is unlikely she would have been placed in a grave with a baby half-delivered.  Bioarchaeologist Siân Halcrow of the University of Otago, therefore believes it is more likely a case of post-mortem fetal extrusion or ‘coffin birth’.

Coffin births occur when natural cases, which build up during decomposition of a body, cause squeezing of the uterus, forcing the fetus out of the body. The process of fetal extrusion is not well understood, however, because it does not occur in all cases of a deceased pregnant woman.

Only a handful of cases are known to have occurred in modern times, the most recent being January, 2018, when a deceased 33-year-old woman from Mbizana, South Africa, gave birth to a stillborn baby in her coffin.