Replying to a message of Carol Shenkenberger to Nancy Backus:

 NB>> Exactly.  And also, more of the teenage-mother births are being
 NB>> classified as high-risk, as there are more and more of younger teens
 NB>> giving birth.  Babies that couldn't have made it in times past are
 NB>> at least given a chance now, with today's technology.  And sometimes
 NB>> that includes a caesarian.

 CS> Thats a somewhat historically recent thing though. Culturally we
 CS> redefined  'whats too early' around mid-1800's.  Mother death rate
 CS> for first childbirth  went way down when we culturally decided '17 is
 CS> better than 14'.  Infant  mortality wasnt that different I seem to
 CS> recall, but the mother lived to try  again.

 CS> Death in childbirth used to be very very common.  So common that by
 CS> age 30, men  well outnumbered women.  Stats show that when you reduce
 CS> or almost eliminate  that factor, women outnumber men all the way up
 CS> the age group.

In the Indian Cave State Park near Schubert, Nebraska (about 75 miles south
of Omaha on the Missouri River) is the cemetery for the town of St. Deroin
(which no longer exists, the only remaining building is the restored brick
school house).  In that cemetery is the headstone for a woman who apparently
died in childbirth (headstone reads "... and infant daughter");
she was married 
(tombstone says "... wife of ...") and she was 15 years, 6 months
old at the
time of her death in 1873.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+