Bacterial infection and septicemia occurring in a woman after childbirth, usually due to unsanitary conditions. Symptoms include inflammation of the uterus, fever, rapid heartbeat, and foul lochia (vaginal discharge), followed, if untreated, by prostration, renal failure, shock, and death. The condition is now uncommon; when it occurs it is treated with antibiotics. Also called childbed fever.
Blood poisoning (septicemia) in a mother shortly after childbirth resulting from infection of the lining of the womb or the vagina, which have been torn or bruised during labor. Increased standards of hygiene in midwifery and the use of such antibiotics as penicillin have reduced the numbers of deaths caused by puerperal fever from the formerly high level almost to nil.
A sudden feverish illness in women due to a bacterial infection during childbirth. The name “milk fever” originated because the fever often coincided with the breasts filling with milk, leading to an assumed association between the two. However, there’s no actual link between breast fullness and this fever. It’s also known as childbed fever or milk fever.