History Main / DeathByChildBirth

* Jeriba Shigan dies giving birth in ''Film/EnemyMine''. It's made clearer in the source novella that the sexless, self-fertilizing Dracs normally bear several children, but something had gone wrong with poor Jerry.

* ''Blog/BetterBonesAU'': Onestar's mother, Larksplash, dies giving birth to him, and all of his siblings die as well. This is how he gets the name Onekit, as a [[LostInTranslation somewhat untranslatable]] InUniverse allusion to him being completely alone and the only thing left.

* In the ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''/''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'' CrossOver fic ''Fanfic/PointsOfFamiliarity'', at some point in the fic's backstory, this happened to Asuka. The same theme is carried over to the fic's more comedic rewrite ''Fanfic/SurrogateOfZero'', and is touched upon a little more.

* ''Literature/BreakingDawn''. Bella dies during her extremely difficult labour, but she doesn't ''die'' die. She survives Renesmee's birth... by being turned into a vampire.

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}: Breaking Dawn''. Bella dies during her extremely difficult labour, but she doesn't ''die'' die. She survives Renesmee's birth... by being turned into a vampire.

* ''Series/TippingTheVelvet'': Little Cyril's mother died giving birth to him. As a result, Ralph and Florence adopted him.

* ''Film/ClassOfNukemHighPartIIITheGoodTheBadAndTheSubhumanoid'': Near the start of the movie, Victoria gives birth to Dick, and then [[TheProtagonist Adlai]]. She then dies.

* Played straight in one episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''. {{Justified|Trope}} as the mother had placenta previa, a condition which prevented a safe vaginal delivery, which ''is'' a thing that can happen even with modern medicine. She had been scheduled for a c-section but was kidnapped and held prisoner and ended up going into labor. Stabler and Fin find her still alive, and are thus able to save her baby, but the damage to the mother is too severe and she dies.

[[AC:''The Husky and his White Cat Shizun'']]

[[folder:Audio Play]]
* Lizzy from ''AudioPlay/WereAlive''

[[folder:Ballads]]
* In the Literature/{{Child Ballad|s}} "Literature/WilliesLady", Willie's mother, a rank witch, has cursed her daughter-in-law to do this.

* In the Creator/VCAndrews novel ''Literature/TheCasteelSeries'', Heaven's mother Leigh died giving birth to her. This causes Luke, Leigh's husband, to resent Heaven for "killing" the woman he loved. The circumstances of her conception (Leigh was raped by her stepfather) don't help much, either.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

[[folder:Pinball]]
* The backstory for ''Pinball/WhoDunnit1995'' reveals that Trixie's mother died while giving birth to her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Poetry]]
* In the Creator/RobertFrost poem "Maple," the title character's mother died shortly after her birth, living only long enough to give her her distinctive name.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Religion and Mythology]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'', there are rules for childbirth and midwifery. A woman's chance of dying in each birth is about one in five, though a good midwife provides for a substantially better chance. Incidentally, a Hermetic maga who has any interest in the subject can more-or-less ensure a trouble-free birth, though doing this for a noble family may be illegal depending on local Hermetic politics.
* Is explicitly stated to be impossible for female Chosen in ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}''. The infant may die, but not the mother. This is probably a specific design feature for the Dragon-Blooded, who must pass their power on genetically; the Celestial Exalts are just that tough. A certain amount of risk enters the equation if the Exalt gives birth too often (every five years is considered the minimum safe period), but the chances are still very slim.
* Can happen in ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'', although this can easily be because the FetusTerrible is ''a sentient, raptophilic military fork just like its father''.
* According to the ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' supplement ''Blood of Fiends'', this is why "Motherless" is a [[InSeriesNickname canonical slang term]] for [[EldritchAbomination qlippoth]] -- descended tieflings.
* Women in the ''Pendragon'' RPG have an extremely high chance of suffering this; it's actually the most common cause of death, at least for female [=PCs=]. The system is also fairly misogynistic, reflecting many 'medieval values,' so childbirth is pretty much a female PC's main duty unless they're very inventive with their character. At least one such PC made it her life's goal to avoid getting married and pregnant, just to avoid this.
* The birth of a werefox in the ''Kitsune'' supplement for the ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' almost always causes this... sort of. For mystical reasons that are never completely explained, the birth of a Kitsune requires sacrifice, so a non-Kitsune parent of a Kitsune has a 90% chance of dying when the child is born. Yes, this happens to fathers as well as mothers.
* The Weathermay-Foxgrove sisters, successors to Van Richten as ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'''s most widely-read occult scholars, lost their mother to this trope. Probably justified: even today, twin births are always considered high-risk, and medical care even in Mordent is 17th-century at best.
* In a bit more metaphorical example of this trope, the creation of Slaanesh in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' destroyed the Eldar civilization.

[[folder:Theatre]]
* Appears in the musical ''Kristina'', based on Vilhelm Moberg's [[Literature/TheEmigrants "Emigrants" suite]]. Though in this case, it is a miscarriage that leads to the death of Kristina.
* In the musical adaptation of ''Literature/{{Matilda}}'', this was the ultimate fate of the Acrobat [[spoiler: (i.e. Miss Honey's mother)]]. During a dangerous stunt, which she and her husband had wanted to call off due to her pregnancy but which her evil sister [[spoiler: Miss Trunchbull]] forced them to perform anyway, she took a terrible fall and broke nearly every bone in her body. She survived long enough to bring her baby to term, but when she gave birth, "the effort was too great."
* In ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'', the disputed page boy's mother died in childbirth, which is why Titania's raising him.
* In ''Theatre/OurTown'', the final scene of the play is about Emily looking back on the town and her life after she dies in childbirth.
* Maurice Maeterlinck's play ''Pelléas et Mélisande'' -- ''much'' better known as an operatic adaption by Claude Debussy. The fey beauty Mélisande dies giving birth to a tiny child, as the OlderAndWiser King Arkel laments that "now the child must live in her place: it's the poor little one's turn".
* Music/RichardWagner's operatic tetralogy ''Theatre/TheRingOfTheNibelung'' has this in store for Sieglinde, who dies as she gives birth to the hero Siegfried, [[TwinCest her incestuous child]] with her already dead twin brother Siegmund. Her sort-of "midwife", the dwarf Mime, takes baby Siegfried in.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''Roleplay/TheGamersAlliance'', Viirsa gives birth to Kaisa and dies in her lover [[MightyGlacier Hector's]] arms after being fatally wounded in the aftermath of the infiltration of Myridia during the Great War.

* The mother of the Fiametta triplets in ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' version 4, which sets up most of the trio's future emotional issues.

* In 17th century England childbirth was (outside of the plague years) the most common cause of death in women. One historian estimated that ''one in four'' London women died of pregnancy or childbirth-related matters. This long before the "medicalization" of childbirth.

** In the backstory of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Honest Hearts'', the survivalist [[PosthumousCharacter Randall Clark]] lost his second wife and unborn son to a breech birth.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/{{Beauty and the Beast|1987}}'' had three horrifying cases of this:

* The ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "[[CharacterFocus Incubator]]" reveals that [[BigBad Scorpius]]'s mother died giving birth to him. Justified by the fact that she'd been raped by a [[LizardFolk Scarran]] as part of a breeding program that had killed ninety other [[HumanAliens Sebacean]] females in a pretty similar manner.

*** I read in the '90s, a book by Michael Medved, where he wrote that he had interviewed TV writers, about the huge number of runaway mothers and/or mothers dead in childbirth. At least one writer told him that TV writers simply don't like mothers! ("Symbolically killing my ex-wife", one guy told him.)

* In the third season of ''Series/TheWalkingDead'', Lori goes into labor in the middle of a walker attack and begins bleeding heavily. As she had previously done with Carl, she is forced to give birth via C-section... and as might be imagined, C-section with a hunting knife in the basement of an abandoned prison doesn't end well for the mother.

-->"My father died in childbirth." \\

"He got drunk and fell off the roof while I was being born."

* Notable women who died in childbirth include: Julia Caesaris (Julius Caesar's daughter), Joan of England (Henry II of England's daughter), Margaret of Scotland (mother of Margaret, Maid of Norway), Isabella of Mar (Robert the Bruce's first wife), Marjorie Bruce (Robert the Bruce's daughter), Joanna of Bourbon, Mary de Bohun, Jadwiga of Poland, Elizabeth of York, Lucrezia Borgia, Jane Seymour, Isabella of Portugal, Katherine Parr, Elisabeth and Claude of France (daughters of Henry II of France), Gabrielle d'Estrées (mistress of Henri IV of France), Mumtaz Mahal (wife of Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal was built in her honour), Margaret Theresa of Spain (the ill princess depicted in Velázquez's "Las Meninas"), mathematician Émilie du Châtelet, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte of Wales, cookbook writer Isabella Beeton, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (first wife of Teddy), writer and feminist Jean Webster, musician Nadine Shamir, and Mexican actress Marla Hiromi Hayakawa.

May be used to set up a tense family situation where the father or older siblings unreasonably blame the youngest for [[MaternalDeathBlameTheChild "murdering their mother"]] and turn him/her into TheUnfavourite. Other times, [[OverprotectiveDad the dead woman's father and/or mother may accuse her (now widowed) husband of killing her]]. The new widower [[SurvivorGuilt may or may not agree with his father-in-law]].

* In ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon'', a short fantasy novel by Creator/StephenKing, Queen Sasha survives a relatively difficult first birth. The second birth is extremely easy -- until the midwife, on orders from court magician and BigBad Flagg, makes a small incision that causes the queen to bleed to death, unknown to anyone. The fact that she had a HundredPercentAdorationRating only strengthens the second son, [[TheUnfavorite Thomas]], in his belief that [[MaternalDeathBlameTheChild nobody in the kingdom likes him]] for anything but "[[UnexpectedSuccessor throne insurance]]."

* In ''Literature/MidnightsChildren'', Wee Willie Winkie's wife Vanita bleeds out after birthing [[spoiler:Saleem]] because [[ContrivedCoincidence the understaffed hospital is too busy fussing over Ahmed's broken, toe]].

* Done for horror in Graham Masterton's ''Night Warrior'' series' first book. A case of DeathByChildbirth draws the attention of [[{{God}} Ashapola]]. Turns out the devil, Yaomauitl (Asmodeus) is loose and reproducing, with his disgusting spermocytes growing into demon eels while inside his victim before gnawing their way out of her belly and he intends to seduce his way into an army of demons on Earth. So Ashapola creates a new generation of [[WhoYouGonnaCall Night Warriors]] to recapture Yaomauitl.

* A variant overlapping with TraumaticCSection can be seen in ''Film/{{Evolution2015}}''; because the "sea-women" have largely self-taught themselves how to perform caesareans through watching videos and trial and error, the [[MisterSeahorse human boys]] they use as incubators for their offspring have a good chance of being killed when their "daughters" are extracted. The film opens with protagonist Nicolas finding one such unfortunate, and a boy named Victor dies in "delivery" around the midway point.

* Mrs. Richard F. Schiller of ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'' dies in childbirth. Of course, it's not until the end of the book that we learn that she is actually the title character.