Maternal Mortality

Bribase · #1 by **Bribase** » Feb 02, 2012 12:14 pm

I've always wondered about this: How do our rates of maternal mortality (without any medical care) match up to other mammals? Are bipedalism and having a large brain the main causes of maternal mortality or do non human mammals suffer similar dangers during pregnancy and labour?

Have any studies been conducted on this? I would imagine it would be difficult to conduct a study like this in the wild.

Grace · #2 by **Grace** » Feb 02, 2012 11:39 pm

Animals do have problems occasionally, I think you could call veterinarians and get statistics on that. Human females seem to have the most problems given a small pelvic outlet and infants having a large head. There's also strange anomalies like amniotic fluid embolism, and Rh factor. I don't know if those things exist in the animal world, but it sure would be interesting to find out.

Horwood Beer-Master · #3 by **Horwood Beer-Master** » Feb 03, 2012 11:18 am

I'd imagine marsupials have the least problems. Indeed I often wonder with many marsupials if the mother is even aware she's given birth.

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · #4 by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » Feb 04, 2012 8:39 pm

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:I'd imagine marsupials have the least problems. Indeed I often wonder with many marsupials if the mother is even aware she's given birth.

yes, they have to be, the mother licks the fur up to the pouch, and the offspring follows it up and into the pouch before latching onto the nipple.

Rachel Bronwyn · #5 by **Rachel Bronwyn** » Feb 04, 2012 8:54 pm

Bipedalism promotes narrows hips so it's definitely different for us than it is for most mammals.

There are so many more causes of maternal mortality in humans than pelvic size though. It's not helpful but it's not the cause of maternal mortality in humans. It's one of many.

Horwood Beer-Master · #6 by **Horwood Beer-Master** » Feb 06, 2012 2:37 am

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn wrote:
Horwood Beer-Master wrote:I'd imagine marsupials have the least problems. Indeed I often wonder with many marsupials if the mother is even aware she's given birth.

yes, they have to be, the mother licks the fur up to the pouch...

I'm not sure this behaviour applies to all marsupial species.

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · #7 by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » Feb 06, 2012 10:10 am

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:
PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn wrote:
Horwood Beer-Master wrote:I'd imagine marsupials have the least problems. Indeed I often wonder with many marsupials if the mother is even aware she's given birth.

yes, they have to be, the mother licks the fur up to the pouch...

I'm not sure this behaviour applies to all marsupial species.

not having spent a huge amount of time on marsupials you might be right. but there are more than a few species (both from south america and australia) that exhibit this behaviour.

Mayor · #8 by **Mayor** » Feb 10, 2012 2:19 am

According to the World Health Organization major causes of death in women undergoing labor are severe bleeding/hemorrhage, infections, enclampsia (coma and seizures during pregnancy), obstructed labour, and of course direct causes. Out of these I could see bleeding/hemorrhage, infections, and direct causes creating fatal complications in mammals other than humans during pregnancy.

I've actually had a dog in the country side of Texas that gave birth to a litter of dogs and days later died for some unknown reason, but more than likely it had something to do with the stress of pregnancy. Needless to say all of the babies died and my father had to collect all the dead baby puppies and bury them.