Our (now healthy, five year old) son was definitely killing his mother from the womb; her liver was about to shut down due to HELLP syndrome when we did an induction. 50 years earlier and she and my child would be dead. This does actually kill people today: https://www.propublica.org/article/die-in-childbirth-materna... is an account of a neonatal ICU nurse who died from HELLP five years before my wife's doctor caught it. Childbirth can be really scary and dangerous.