Reason on Death Certificate

It could have been Pyloric stenosis only recognised and operated on by a few large hospitals in the 50s. Today it is the second most common operation performed on young babies.
A relation lost a young baby to this in the 50s. The baby projectile vomits and if not treated gets dehydrated and eventually wastes away without anyone knowing what was really wrong. The baby I know of was operated on eventually in Manchester but it was too late. The death certificate says natural causes I've seen it.

Germanshepherdsmum

‘Senile decay’ was the cause of death of one of my ancestors in the early 1900s. Old age sounds kinder.

Not quite as bad as one I have,' After falling downstairs inebriated. A bleed on the brain or back injury? Which hopefully would be investigated today. I also have one that says smallpox long after inoculation had been offered to all. At first, I thought maybe a sailor but he was a Haematite miner.

You could be correct Yammy, both my children suffered from projectile vomiting so it may run in the family.?

Thanks again GSM, It seems the baby’s father was the informant but it doesn’t state if he was present. I can’t even find the poor little chaps birth certificate. I’ve searched the internet high and low looking on every website possible ?

M0nica

I think it would be SIDS, which I do not think had a name then nor was there any idea of its cause. If the child had died of pneumonia, that would be on the death certificate.

'natural causes' usually means: that the subsequent post mortem was unable to identify a cause for the death.

Nowadays, it is so much easier through tests of body fluids, and organs to find the cause of death and the phrase 'natural causes' is much less common.

I wonder, would they perform a post mortem on a baby in the 1950s?
My friend’s nephew died of SIDS in 1970s, but I don’t remember any mention of PM, just that it was a ‘cot death’.

I think Yammy may have hit the nail on the head.
I don't know, but would imagine that a PM would have been carried out on a baby in the case of an unexplained death - i.e. where the child hadn't been under the doctor's care for an illness likely to have lead to the death.

My cousin died at six months, she was born after her father was killed in a pit accident. Her death in 1966 was registered, as far as I know, as silent pneumonia. I have never heard of that term since.
My aunt put her in her cot, seemingly healthy, then found her dead later. Such a tragic tale.

I doubt it was pyloric stenosis, which my son had and was successfully operated on at three weeks, when he had lost too much weight. The worrying thing was that it was not projectile, so hard to notice.
The OP states that the baby was sitting up and looking healthy at about 8 months. This would not be the case with pyloric stenosis. The wasting away would have finished him off well before that.

What a sad tale. Poor baby. It does sound like SIDS/Cot death. A friend lost her baby that way in the early 80’s. She fed him about 7:30am, put him back down for a sleep and he was gone when she went into his room at about 9:30.

Marydoll silent pneumonia does exist, although it probably has a proper clinical name. My medic dd has seen it in wards she’s worked on. It’s when the patient appears to be doing well and has no symptoms of pneumonia but suddenly collapses and dies.

Oh dear, what tragic tales, it makes me realise how lucky I am ??