A coffin birth is a rare phenomena that occurs when abdominal gasses build up in a pregnant corpse, ejecting the fetus from the woman’s body.
In one of the most unusual postmortem phenomena in history, a small percentage of deceased pregnant women have “given birth” to an unviable fetus after death. This event, sometimes known as a coffin birth or postmortem fetal ejection, is as gory and terrible as the term implies.
This is due to gas buildup in the pregnant corpse’s body. This, combined with the normal decay and bloating of the woman’s corpse, forces the body to evacuate the fetus.
In many situations, the fetus has already died by the time the lady is buried.
Fortunately, contemporary embalming procedures have mostly eliminated coffin births, making them even rarer than they were centuries ago. However, this phenomena is not entirely inconceivable now.
Recorded Cases of Coffin Births throughout History
One of the first known examples of a coffin birth occurred during the height of the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Crown established this institution to punish heretics in Spain from 1478 to 1834. Jews, Muslims, and everyone who wasn’t Catholic faced forced conversion, torture, and even execution.
In one particularly heinous example, a pregnant lady was executed in 1551 after being prosecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. Her corpse hung for nearly four hours before two dead infants fell from it. Little else is known about this macabre incident, including why the coffin birth occurred so quickly after the execution, but it’s likely that the conditions around her body led the corpse to putrefy at a faster rate.
Then, in 1650, an English woman named Emme Toplace purportedly gave birth to a live baby boy only hours after being buried. According to records, the infant was successfully retrieved after many witnesses reported hearing “rumbling” and “sighing” from Emme’s grave, as well as “crying of a child.” The boy supposedly lived and was named Fils de la terre, which means Son of the Earth. If this story is accurate, Emme may have been buried alive by accident and was dying while giving birth.
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, published in 1896, includes several further accounts of coffin births. Interestingly, some of these purportedly occurred before to the lady’s burial, but in many cases throughout history, a coffin birth is discovered long after the mother has died.
For example, in 2010, archaeologists in Imola, Italy unearthed the medieval grave of a pregnant lady who died in the 7th or 8th century. They also found the remains of her fetus between her legs. It was later discovered that the fetus, who had already died at the time of the mother’s burial, was partially ejected from the birth canal in the grave.
Even centuries ago, coffin births were exceedingly rare. Experts claim it has been observed “infrequently” in the archaeological record, and documented records of postmortem fetal extrusions are equally rare. Nonetheless, numerous medical authorities have been researching similar instances for ages.
What exactly causes a coffin birth?
Though experts understand the fundamentals of a coffin birth, there are still some unknowns, particularly given how uncommon it is.
When the phenomena occurs, it usually happens within 48 to 72 hours of the pregnant woman’s death. As the body naturally decomposes and swells after death, abdominal gasses accumulate and can sometimes push on the uterus so hard that the fetus is forced through the vaginal opening. However, while this may appear to be a “birth” following the mother’s death, the fetus is usually already dead.
But why does the pressure get so great that the fetus is forced out? What conditions make this phenomena more likely to occur? And how do we interpret centuries-old accounts of “live” coffin births?
Part of the problem with identifying how and why these things happen is that no one has been able to scientifically see the process in action, for reasons that should be obvious.
One plausible explanation for this is that the body decomposes and putrefies after death. As a result, bacteria in the gut begin to multiply and spread quickly. According to the National Library of Medicine, this increases the number of gases present in the body, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrogen sulfide.
These gases cause the corpse to bloat, and as the body’s tissues deteriorate, fluids are forced out of the orifices. These gasses may also push down on the uterus, releasing the fetus from the body.
While coffin births have always been unique, they are especially uncommon in the modern world due to advanced embalming treatments and the growing use of funeral methods such as cremation. With increased medical understanding and competent intervention after death, coffin births are highly unlikely to occur following the deaths of pregnant mothers nowadays.
They do, however, still occur in today’s globe.
Modern Examples of Coffin Births
In 2005, a 34-year-old lady was discovered dead in her house in Germany after an apparent heroin overdose. She was also eight months pregnant at the time of her death, and her deceased fetus was discovered partially emerged from the delivery canal, indicating a modern occurrence of a coffin birth.
Three years later, in 2008, another modern-day coffin birth was discovered after a 38-year-old lady in Panama vanished from her house. Four days later, she was discovered brutally killed. She was seven months pregnant when she died, and it was subsequently determined that her lifeless body discharged her dead fetus sometime after her murder.
Surprisingly, in that situation, the fetus remained linked to the placenta, which had not been evacuated from the body.
Even more recently, when pregnant Shanann Watts’ body was discovered in a shallow grave in 2018 — after her husband Chris Watts murdered her and her two children — an autopsy revealed that her body evacuated her 15-week-old fetus, a boy called Nico.
These are, of course, quite rare and terrible examples of this peculiar phenomena, but they serve to demonstrate the fact that postmortem fetal extrusions still occur, unfortunately. Coffin births, as horrific as they are, serve as a condensed portrayal of the thin line between life and death.