Historical Midwifery statistics
Jürgen Schlumbohm. "Saving Mothers' and Children's Lives?: The Performance of German Lying-in Hospitals in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries." Bulletin of the History of Medicine 87.1 (2013): 1-31. Project MUSE. Web. 22 Apr. 2013. .
The author carefully runs the statistics and does a bit of comparing. He concludes-- though he has to do some mathematical estimating to account for the difference in statistical definitions of peri-natal death-- that hospitals were measurably worse in terms of maternal and infant mortality than home births in the late 18th & early 19th century.
The curious fact, here, is that the stillbirth/infant mortality (for the first 1-2 weeks only!) rate he calculates at about 12 per 1000; the maternal mortality rate 13.2 per 1000.
Thus accounting for the fact that the human race did not die off from childbirth complications; however when you consider the number of pregnancies per woman, you can see how estimates of lifetime risk were so high.
I happened upon this BirthNerd post: http://birthnerd.blogspot.com/2011/07/pre-modern-death-in-childbirth.html
which points to a Lancet article with more stats, both historical and current international:
Carine Ronsmans, Wendy J Graham, on behalf of The Lancet Maternal Survival Series steering group, "Maternal mortality: who, when, where, and why," The Lancet, Volume 368, Issue 9542, 30 September-6 October 2006, Pages 1189-1200, ISSN 0140-6736, 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69380-X.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360669380X)
The author carefully runs the statistics and does a bit of comparing. He concludes-- though he has to do some mathematical estimating to account for the difference in statistical definitions of peri-natal death-- that hospitals were measurably worse in terms of maternal and infant mortality than home births in the late 18th & early 19th century.
The curious fact, here, is that the stillbirth/infant mortality (for the first 1-2 weeks only!) rate he calculates at about 12 per 1000; the maternal mortality rate 13.2 per 1000.
Thus accounting for the fact that the human race did not die off from childbirth complications; however when you consider the number of pregnancies per woman, you can see how estimates of lifetime risk were so high.
I happened upon this BirthNerd post: http://birthnerd.blogspot.com/2011/07/pre-modern-death-in-childbirth.html
which points to a Lancet article with more stats, both historical and current international:
Carine Ronsmans, Wendy J Graham, on behalf of The Lancet Maternal Survival Series steering group, "Maternal mortality: who, when, where, and why," The Lancet, Volume 368, Issue 9542, 30 September-6 October 2006, Pages 1189-1200, ISSN 0140-6736, 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69380-X.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360669380X)