History Main / DeathByChildbirth

** ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Daenerys and Tyrion's mothers both died after giving birth to them. Tywin and Cersei loathe Tyrion, and regard him as some sort of murderer, because of this. Jon Snow's mother Lyanna Stark dies after giving birth to him, as it turns out in ''[[Recap/GameOfThronesS6E10TheWindsOfWinter The Winds of Winter]]''.
** ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': Both Queen Aemma Targaryen and Laena Velaryon end up at surefire risk of this when trying to birth due to their child's abnormal fetal position (Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower meanwhile have no such issue and give birth to multiple children each). Aemma dies of blood loss from a TraumaticCSection peformed in order to save her child ([[AllForNothing in vain]]) and Laena ends up asking a MercyKill by fire to her dragon Vhagar.

* In Cameron Dokey's ''Wild Orchid" (no relation to the above books), a retelling of ''Literature/TheBalladOfMulan'', Mulan's mother died when she was born. A case of DeathByAdaptation, since in the original ballad and most other adaptations, her mother is alive and well.

[[AC:Unsorted/Dormant/Dead]]

* In the ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''/''Literature/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.

* Gun That Sings dies soon after Snow White is born in ''Literature/SixGunSnowWhite''.

-->'''Princess Aurora''': Is childbirth as dangerous as all that?
-->'''Princess Ann''': [The wizard] Mandelbaum says it's because royal families can afford physicians and the very best medical care. Consequently, they die like flies.

* 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.
** Also the fate of Gabriel(le) Landry in the Landry series, and Lillian's mother in the Cutler series. The Cutler series also contains a subversion: Jed Booth pretends that his wife Georgia died as a result of complications from Charlotte's birth when Georgia really died from stomach cancer several days previously. This is to hide the fact that Charlotte is Lillian's daughter and the result of Jed raping her.
** This is a plot point in ''Daughter of Darkness'', where Lorelei discovers that she and all her "adoptive" sisters are her father's biological children -- he impregnates his daughters, they die in childbirth, and the babies grow up to be beautiful young women who lure new victims to the house for him (he is a vampire.)

** ''Literature/LifeExpectancy'': Natalie Beezo dies giving birth, and Maddie Tock has a close call.

* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Ben's mother died in childbirth, making his father despise him. Of course, he eventually ends up murdering [[SelfMadeOrphan the surviving parent]]...
** Plus, ''every woman'' who conceived their child on the Island. Which is why Ben is so protective of his adoptive daughter...
*** And by 'protective' we mean [[KnightTemplarParent kidnaps his daughter's boyfriend and spends weeks brainwashing him in order to make him unable to perform.]]
----> "I just didn't want you to get pregnant. Maybe I overreacted."
* In the ''Series/Merlin1998'' series, Merlin's mother Elissa dies in childbirth. It is revealed shortly after that [[BigBad Queen Mab]] could probably have saved her if she wanted to, but she chose not to, because "She'd served her purpose."

* On ''Series/ThePretender'', Brigitte died shortly after Baby Parker was born while she was on the run, something she knew would happen.

** In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne's mother died while giving birth to her.
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Nola Granville died in childbirth in March 1943 after she had a miscarriage caused by the malformation in her uterus.
* The secondary antagonist in ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'', [[spoiler: Leonard Peabody, was born as Harold Jenkins, and his mother died giving birth to him on the same day as all the Academy member. The death apparently drives his father to become an abusive alcoholic, leading to a messy end, and Harold trying to get revenge on The Academy through Vanya.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' provides a fantastic variant: apparently, Rose Quartz "gave up her physical form" to bring her [[HalfHumanHybrid half-human]] son, Steven, into the world. The exact details of this have not yet been explained, but it has been mentioned that Rose's sacrifice was necessary to pass her gem to her son and that she technically still exists as part of the gem half of his biology. Rose did this willingly and knowingly, effectively making this an example of (G-rated) ''Suicide'' by Childbirth.

** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', it's implied that companion Aveline's mother may have died giving birth to her. Aveline says little about her mother, except that she never knew the woman and was raised by her widowed father. She either died in childbirth or when Aveline was extremely small.

** After Geneva Dunsany uses a ScarpiaUltimatum to force Jamie to have sex with her, she becomes pregnant and then dies a KarmicDeath giving birth.
** Jamie's mother Ellen died in childbirth.