Unborn Infants

Question

Good evening folks,

 

I was adding a few profiles today, and ran into some confusion with one of them on how I should have it listed.

 

If a lady passes away and is carrying a child that also dies, is there a preference or common practice for how to list the date of birth? For example: A lady dies tragically in an accident and is carrying a child. No matter what term, it is still a healthy living person (not referring to a miscarriage). They obviously passed away with their mother the day she died, but were never really born. This is where I am confused.

 

The one I just made I left the date of birth blank, but not sure what else (if anything) I should do with the statistical portion of the profile (I have the death notice in the bio). In my personal cemetery spreadsheets, I usually just use a "-" for N.A.'s.

 

Thanks kindly to anyone who can help! ^_^

 

Regards,

Jackson.

Comments

I make profiles for stillborn offspring and infants that have official birth records.  This takes care of loose records.  But before a human being is born they are called a fetus.  It is very rare that these are given names.  I wouldn't make a profile in this case but rather a note in the biography of the mother.  I wonder if the coroner in this case made a seperate death certificate for this fetus.  The newspaper obituary is written in a very sensitive fashion in order not to offend but you do notice the fetus doesn't have it's own obit.  Here is link to Wikipedia with the general definitions of what an infant is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant

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I agree with the other comments already posted.  An unborn child (sounds so much better than foetus) does not enter government BDM statistics so probably should not be given his/her own profile.  Most folk would have to give an "Unknown" name at any rate.  In these situations could the mother not be included in categories such as Maternal Mortality (probably not suitable) or Infant Mortality?  Thank you for raising the question.

Answer 1

Your question brings up a very interesting topic that is likely to have many people on each side of the discussion.  

My hunch would be that only children that are "born" - whether alive or stillborn - would be entered into WikiTree with their own profiles.  It may make sense to add the information about the unborn child to the mother's bio, though, in my opinion.