Dying for sex? Intercourse in the puerperium

Abstract

It was, of course, inevitable that the press would pick up on the story after it appeared in a medical journal. The combination of birth, sex and death provided irresistible headlines. Two women had died from air embolism during sexual intercourse, one 8days after delivering her third chid, the other 5days after giving birth to her fourth (Batman et al, 1998). Such deaths are extremely rare, and the coincidence of their both happening in the same town led local doctors to publish the cases as a separate report, which led to a predictable press hunt to find the bereaved families. One of the cases had already been published in the last report on Maternal Deaths (Department of Health, 1996) — the only case of air embolism among 298 direct and indirect maternal deaths in the UK 1991–3.