In the mid-19th century, the mortality rate from puerperal (or "childbed") fever at Vienna General Hospital's maternity ward was so high that many women, it is said, preferred to give birth in the street.
The chief medical problems associated with the puerperium include usually mild, transient depression, resulting from emotional letdown and discomfort associated with puerperal changes; clotting disorders, caused by blood stasis and prevented by an early return to normal activity; bleeding from a retained placenta; and puerperal fever, a major cause of maternal death until the 19th century.
March 2, 1883 Guildford, England September 29 , 1967Farnham Common, England Leonard Colebrook, (born March 2, 1883, Guildford, Surrey, Eng. died Sept. 29, 1967, Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire) English medical researcher who introduced the use of Prontosil, the first sulfonamide drug, as a cure for puerperal, or childbed, fever, a condition resulting from infection after childbirth or abortion.
By 1945, as a result of the widespread use of the drug, puerperal fever was no longer a common problem.
Streptococcus pyogenes, often referred to as group A streptococcus bacteria, can cause rheumatic fever, impetigo, scarlet fever, puerperal fever, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, strep throat, tonsillitis, and other upper respiratory infections.
His most important medical contribution was that of calling attention to the contagiousness of puerperal fever (1843).
Another type of endometritis may occur after any gynecological procedure, including childbirth, abortion, and insertion of an intrauterine device (IUD), and can lead to puerperal sepsis and even death, as was common in the early 19th century, before aseptic practice in hospitals was widely employed.
He married three times; his first two wives died of puerperal fever.
She also claimed that she never had a single case of puerperal, or childbed, fever among her patients, owing to her knowledge of sterilization, which she learned from Joseph Lister during her time in Europe.
The invention of the forceps used in delivery, the introduction of anesthesia, and Ignaz Semmelweis's discovery of the cause of puerperal ("childbed") fever and his introduction of antiseptic methods in the delivery room were all major advances in obstetrical practice.
These measures produced a marked reduction in cases of puerperal fever, the bacterial scourge of women following childbirth.
