A noble girl who died more than 1000 years ago shockingly gave birth in her coffin.
From 1785 to 1829, the tomb of the Toll family was used for burials. This building was recently found in Vihti, which is located in southern Finland.
The woman was one of eight people in her family to die. The worse part of the story is that she had given birth just before she died, in the coffin, they buried her in.
Charlotte Bjornram died on October 23, 1808, at the age of 24. Her body was embalmed and buried five and a half months after her death. This is common practice in the early 1800s.
When the scientists found a fetus in Charlotte’s ovary, they concluded that she had been pregnant for six months.
Read how this woman gave birth in a coffin
Birth after death is extremely rare, but it has happened before. That’s because, during our decomposition process, gases will push out the baby from the abdomen. Our ancestor’s knowledge of this process was limited not just because their lives were already filled with anxieties and superstitions.
For example, in a recent archaeological dig in Italy, archaeologists found the body of a woman who was pregnant. The woman died on account of pregnancy complications. When they buried the woman and unborn fetus, they discovered that there is evidence of a twin that died in utero. And when Charlotte Bjornram was 6 months pregnant with her twin, she died from complications from high blood pressure.
In the 1551 case, a female was executed and four hours later, her body gave birth to two babies. We are not attributing the cause of death to gas accumulation; it is more likely that she had a convulsion that led to “postpartum.”
The last reported incident was in 2005 when a dead fetus was given birth to and died hours later.
