- Little House On the Prairie: The actual cause of death by Nancy Olesen's biological mother. For years, Nancy – a young Nellie Olesen-lookalike orphan with severe behavioral problems – had claimed she was abandoned by her mother, but her adopted mother (the evil Mrs. Olesen, of all people) helps Nancy come to terms with the fate of her birth mother.
- Several other episodes dealt with pre-eclampsia and birth-related complications. One example is the Season 7 episode "A Faraway Cry," where Caroline Ingalls tends to a childhood friend who begins having complications with her pregnancy.
- Wilson's first girlfriend on 7th Heaven was given the Death by Sex approach in Backstory, just so he could be a dramatic Single Teen Dad character.
- Used straight once on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, when the poor mother had placenta previa, and had been kidnapped and locked up for a few days. Lampshaded in another episode, along with its unlikelihood:
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Melinda Warner: Like mother, like daughter, I've got no obvious cause of death on either. |
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- And averted in another episode when Stabler's wife Kathy is involved in a car accident along with Olivia. She gives birth to a baby boy in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, then loses blood pressure and consciousness as the screen fades to black... only to have her wide awake and recovering fully when Stabler arrives at the hospital.
- On Lost, Ben's mother died in childbirth, making his father despise him. Of course, he eventually ends up murdering the surviving parent...
- Plus, every woman who conceived their child on the Island. Which is why Ben is so protective of his adoptive daughter. And 'protective' means he kidnaps his daughter's boyfriend and spends weeks brainwashing him in order to make him unable to perform.
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I just didn´t want you to get pregnant. Maybe I overreacted. |
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- On Angel, Darla the vampire dies during Connor's birth, but in a twist, it is because she stakes herself allowing Connor to live, since she was physically incapable of delivering a child.
- On The Pretender, Brigitte died shortly after Baby Parker was born while she was on the run, something she knew would happen.
- Arthur's mother in Merlin died in childbirth, after Uther makes a deal with Nimueh so she (the mother) can conceive.
- One episode of Smallville has Lex Luthor having a dream about what would happen if he chose to be the good guy. Everthing looked rosy until his dream wife Lana died giving birth to their second kid. So Lex decided not to be the good guy.
- Henry VIII's third wife Jane Seymour, when portrayed onscreen. In reality, although technically it was the birth that killed her, she didn't actually die until almost two weeks later and was well enough to attend the Christening. However, most cinematic and televisual adaptations have her die giving birth because it's more dramatic than the historical truth and saves up some filming.
- Arguably averted in The Tudors, which follows the real life example.
- Chuck Bass' mother from Gossip Girl died giving birth to him, the reason for his father's dislike of him.
- In the Chilean telenovela Papi Ricky, the Hot Dad male lead Ricky tells his daughter Alicia that her mom Catalina died in childbirth, but this isn't true since she mentally cracked and ran away few after her birth. Catalina actually returns later, as a Broken Bird and with Laser-Guided Amnesia. She finds young Alicia and befriends her, but for a long time they don't about their bond. Also, in the Grand Finale, Ricky's main love interest and Alicia's ex-teacher, later adoptive mother Colomba dies after giving birth to Alicia's half-brother.
- Dr. Greene's frantic attempts to avert this trope were heart-wrenchingly portrayed in "Love's Labor Lost", an Emmy-winning episode of ER. Also almost played out with Carol, who nearly bled to death following the birth of her twins.
- Beauty and The Beast had three horrifying cases of this:
- Vincent's foster brother Devin's mother died in childbirth with Father attending. This leads Father to not acknowledge Devin as his son until adulthood. Though Father claims that was because he didn't want to seem to favor his 'real' son. He is genuinely dismayed when Vincent points out he's gone to the opposite extreme.
- And of course Catherine herself has a rather heartbreaking (indirect) death by childbirth in that she is held prisoner throughout her pregnancy with Jacob and murdered shortly after without ever even holding her son. She lives just long enough to tell Vincent about their baby. Of course, considering the execs at the time, this could be an instance of Death by Sex
- Vincent himself killed his natural mother. Father admits this through a very pained confession that the brutal fashion of his birth almost caused Father to kill Vincent at birth, but relented.
- The Farscape episode "Incubator" reveals that Scorpius' mother died giving birth to him. Justified by the fact that she'd been raped by a Scarran as part of a breeding program that had killed ninety other Sebacean females in a pretty similar manner.
- In the 1998 Merlin series, Merlin's mother Elissa dies in childbirth. It is revealed shortly after that Queen Mab could probably have saved her if she wanted to, but she chose not to, because "She'd served her purpose."
- One episode of Dollhouse features a man whose wife had recently died giving birth to their son. He hired the Dollhouse to imprint Echo with his wife's personality, feeling like he couldn't bond with the baby himself under the circumstances. Things fall apart, of course, and in the end he realizes how bad an idea it was.
- In the pilot episode of Quantum Leap, "Genesis", Sam saves a woman who died in childbirth in the original history.
- Xena: Warrior Princess: Meg's father: "My father died in childbirth." "Your father died in childbirth?" "He got drunk and fell off the roof while I was being born."
- Rare villainous example: In the Criminal Minds episode "A Thousand Words", the wife/accomplice of a serial kidnapper and rapist died this way after her murderous spouse committed suicide, leaving her with only his latest chained-up victim to help when she went into bloody labor.
- In the old-school Mexican comedy show El Chavo Del Ocho, Don Ramón says that his wife passed away as she gave birth to their daughter, Chilindrina.
- Downton Abbey has Sybil suffering from eclampsia and dying after the birth of her and Tom's daughter, also named Sybil.
- In the taxidermy show American Stuffers, one of the clients was an old lady who lost her pregnant chihuahua dog and her puppies like this.
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