Coffin Birth - Comparable Phenomena

Comparable Phenomena

There are also many cases where the remains of the fetus are found separate from the body of the mother, but expulsion was not through the birth canal, and separation of the two bodies may have been influenced by external environmental factors. The process of separation is so unusual that a specific term for the phenomenon may not have been proposed to the scientific community. These cases may have comparable results, but they are not cases of postmortem fetal extrusion.

In April 2003, the body of Laci Peterson washed up on a shore near San Francisco Bay, who was pregnant when she disappeared four months earlier, while the fetus she had been carrying was discovered on a separate beach. When questioned by the media, medical authorities initially speculated that a "coffin birth" may have occurred. However, at autopsy the cervix was found to be in a prepartum condition. Medical examiners later concluded that while Peterson's body was in the bay, the skin over the abdominal cavity had ruptured due to natural decompositional processes. Seawater entered the abdominal cavity and washed out most of the internal organs, along with the fetus.

In 2007, a 23-year-old woman in India, over eight months pregnant, hanged herself after contractions had begun. A viable infant was spontaneously delivered unassisted from the woman's body, which was suspended by the neck. The healthy infant was found on the floor, still tethered to the body of the mother by the umbilical cord. The primary cause of the delivery was the otherwise normal contractions, which had begun prior to death, and was therefore not related to processes of decomposition. While this is not postmortem fetal extrusion, it may be referred to as a case of postmortem delivery, a term which is applied to a broad range of techniques and phenomena, with a resultant delivery of a live infant.

In 2008, it was reported from Germany that a 23-year-old woman in her third trimester was involved in a motor vehicle accident and died; the nonviable fetus was found between her feet. Following initial impact the vehicle she was in caught fire. The woman was unable to escape due to internal injuries and subsequently burned to death. Investigators came to the conclusion that the extreme heat of the fire burned away epidermal and subcutaneous tissue around the abdominal cavity, after which the anterior aspect of the uterus ruptured, causing the fetus to spill out of the uterine cavity and land on the floor between the woman's feet. The umbilical cord was still intact, and connected the fetus to the placenta via the ruptured wall of the uterus. Unlike the woman, who suffered fourth-degree burns over her entire body, the body of the fetus was relatively undamaged. As the primary cause of separation from the mother's body was thermally-induced traumatic rupture of the abdominal and uterine cavities; because traumatic separation was not related to normal decompositional processes; and because expulsion of the fetus did not involve passage through the birth canal, this is not considered a case of postmortem fetal extrusion.