“..between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of all births ended in the mother’s death a

–“..between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of all births ended in the mother’s death as a result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convulsions. A typical mother gave birth to 5 to 8 children. So her lifetime chances of dying in childbirth ran as high as 1 in 8.”–