Daily AncestorConfinement
Confinement means childbirth or the lying-in period around it; as a cause of death it means a woman died giving birth or soon after.
In older usage a woman's confinement was the time she was kept to her bed to give birth and recover, also called her lying-in. As a cause of death the word simply means she died in or after childbirth.
The record does not say what went wrong. Bleeding, infection and difficult labor were all possible. Look for a baby born, baptized or buried about the same date.
As seen in a recordCause of death line on an early 1900s death certificate
Cause of death: Confinement. Contributory: Hemorrhage.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Confinement." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/causes-of-death/confinement. Last checked 2026-10-01.