Genealogy Chat

I have a death cert for a baby in 1914. His cause of death at the age of 3 weeks was, " Failure to thrive".

My family all belong to the Rhesus negative blood group and I believe that this baby boy was a victim of the Rhesus factor. I know that the antibody injection was introduced to pregnant women in the late 1930's but what I can't find out is if Rhesus was known about in 1914.

Does anyone know?




Deb:)

According to Wikipedia, it was discovered in 1937:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhesus_blood_group_system#History_of_discoveries

According to Wikipedia


Failure to thrive (FTT) is a medical term which denotes poor weight gain and physical growth failure over an extended period of time in infancy. The term has been in medical use for over a century, however faltering growth is now the more politically correct term. As used by pediatricians, it covers poor physical growth of any cause and does not imply abnormal intellectual, social, or emotional development. Failure to thrive is weight consistently below the 3rd to the 5th percentile for age, progressive decrease in weight to below the 3rd to the 5th percentile, or a decrease in the percentile rank of 2 major growth parameters in a short period. The cause may be an identified medical condition or related to environmental factors. Both types relate to inadequate nutrition. Treatment aims to restore proper nutrition

Was this the first child ?

cos usually the first child is OK with Rhesus

A child being in the 3rd of 5 the percetile is not necessarily due to poor nutrition. Some are, but may also have allergies.

My daughter was always in the third percentile, and had rhesus disease. It was a long and rocky road, due to modern medicine she did recover.

It would be difficult to know why baby did not thrive. There are many reasons why this would happen, not just poor nutrition.

Gail

Sorry about the delay but my internet dropped out.

The baby had 4 older siblings but there's another 3 infant death refs I believe are also siblings. Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy these ones yet.

My thoughts were that he could have been a Rhesus baby (unknown of in 1914) which would have contributed to his failure to thrive. This is only guess work of course. It could have been anything.

Thanks for wikipedia URL. It answered my question.



Cheers everyone.





Deb:)

Oh, thank you Joan. That answer really ties in with what I know of the Rhesus factor and it's effects in vitro.

Rhesus babies are born small and their hearts don't develop properly. If the Rhesus factor wasn't known about in 1914 then the doctor couldn't diagnose it. Failure to thrive was probably his best guess without an autopsy.





Deb:)

Deb with what I know of rhesus first hand, babies are smaller and very difficult to feed. Daughter was tube fed for 3 weeks and still had some problems with gaining weight. She is now 30.

If you already have this in your family you would have a good idea this may have been the cause.

Gail

Just a small thought.

"undernourished at birth, failure to thrive"

Just for info, those actually are two separate things.

The baby was undernourished *at birth* (that is, the fetus was undernourished before birth), and failed to thrive *after birth*. "Failure to thrive" is the cause of the baby's death, that is, the death having been of the baby, after birth. It never refers to events pre-birth; that's the "undernourished" part. A baby could be undernourished when born, but still thrive after birth. Or apparently fine when born but then fail to thrive.

I am not knowledgable at all about babies with rhesus factor problems, but it does seem that both terms could describe a baby with those problems.