Death of Great Grandmother Margarethe Wörtche Schwebel 1872-1900

home birth  with the midwife 1800's

Why did great grandmother Margarethe die? This is a sad question we most likely will never have the answer to. She was only 27 years old. Twelve weeks earlier she had given birth to her third child, a healthy little girl that actually lived to adulthood. Puerperal (childbed) fever was a common cause of death of women having babies as antibiotics had not yet been invented and many doctors still did not believe in or strictly adhere to the practice of handwashing. Her baby, Margaret Elisabeth, however was delivered not in Darmstadt but Reinheim, most likely at home by a midwife or family member. Home births had a much lower rate of puerperal fever than did hospital births. Women who died from puerperal fever also generally died in the first few weeks after giving birth. Margarethe died 3 months after her daughter's birth.



Why also did she die in Darmstadt? I would doubt that a healthy mother would leave a child so young or herself care to travel for whatever reason so soon after delivery. I know that Darmstadt had the closest hospital therefore I find it most logical that Margarethe, ill or injured, traveled to Darmstadt hospital for advanced medical care. Knowing medically what we do now I still think it possible that the birth of her child somehow contributed to her death. Pulmonary embolism? Infection? Hemorrhage?

Why? We will never know. The record of her death doesn't say.

Ruhe in Frieden

great grandmother

Margarethe Wörtche Schwebel

b: 7 July 1872 Reinheim, Dieberg, Hesse, Germany

d: 8 May 1900 Darmstadt, Dieberg, Hesse, Germany

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