[Meta] Childbirth, Now with More Pain and Suffering!
Hello. I know childbirth rolls are complicated as they are, but I just can’t resist adding another layer because:
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I’m a masochistic weirdo
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I’m supposed to be studying but I don’t want to
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Other bad things can happen in childbirth besides death and the baby being wacky, and my rolls don’t reflect that right now. While some women can have like 11 kids and be okay, some women will have one and then everything goes to shit. Childbirth can be super hard on the body, so I feel like there should be another dimension to it in our universe besides it going perfectly or it going extremely badly.
With that, I introduce the new general birth roll, with added 10% chance of Childbirth Complications! Yay?
##New General Roll
1-15: Mother dies, single child survives
16-31: Mother and child die
32-102: Child dies
103-134: Twins/Multiples (separate roll)
135-899: Single child that survives.
900-1000: Single child that survives, mother has complication (separate roll)
u/rollme [[1d1000]]
##Childbirth Complication Roll
1-5: Mother’s future fertility is not affected
6: Mother’s future fertility is decreased
7-8: Mother's chance of future stillbirths/miscarriages/maternal death is increased
9-10: Mother is infertile in the future
u/rollme [[1d10]]
##More Info
Something to keep in mind is that these complications are designed to affect the mother after birth. They do not affect the mother during pregnancy or the child that is born. Things that do are already in the general roll. As with all my rolls, these are COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. If you roll a complication, it is up to you whether you want to go along with it or not. If you want to play along, you could leave the rolls at that, having the mother suffer from one of those three nonspecific complications. They are described below. Additionally, I’ve listed some specific things that can cause each complication: you can pick one of those, or stay general.
As you can see, you can currently only roll a complication when you have a single child that survives, not when you have a stillbirth or multiples. If you roll multiples or a stillbirth, I would go ahead and roll a complication roll too. Since the character had a stillbirth, obviously something was up that would probably lead to complication. If your character had twins, multiple babies increases the risk of complications a lot. It is not required to do this, again, but would be in the best interest of accuracy.
If you roll 1-5 (50% chance): This means that the mother suffers a complication that does not affect her future fertility or her future risk of having stillbirths, miscarriages, or herself dying.
If you want to stay nonspecific: The character's future birth rolls will not be affected, but her health is affected in some way.
Specific conditions: You could have your character suffer from any of these conditions, or choose your own. Links for more info:
Postpartum Psychosis (please someone pick this one)
If you roll a 6 (10% chance): This means that the mother suffers a complication that decreases her future fertility, but does not make her more likely to have miscarriages/stillbirths/maternal death.
If you want to stay nonspecific: Your character will have a harder time getting pregnant from now on. Adjust pregnancy rolls accordingly, but don't change actual birth rolls if she does get pregnant again. It may be best to just leave it at this, since Westerosi science isn't that well developed and the mother probably won't know what is actually causing her to have a hard time getting pregnant.
Specific conditions:
General things like structures getting messed up anatomically, weight gain, drinking, etc.
If you roll a 7-8 (20% chance): This means that the mother will be more likely to have miscarriages or stillbirths or die in childbirth in the future.
If you want to stay nonspecific: Adjust your character's birth rolls to reflect an increased risk of deaths. You could also decrease her likelihood to get pregnant, since many of these conditions also have effects on fertility. As such, some are in more than one category.
Specific conditions:
If you roll a 9-10 (20% chance): This means that the mother is no longer able to have children, either because she can't get pregnant, or pregnancies always result in miscarriage or stillbirth.
If you want to stay nonspecific: Sorry, no more birth rolls for you. Again, a woman might not know why she can't have kids anymore, unless there's something glaringly wrong (like in obstetric fistulas).
Specific conditions:
Severe versions of many of the things listed above (severe uterine scarring, severe uterine atony, severe Rh incompatibility, severe sexual problems, etc)
##One Last Note
If you roll something and are not sure what to do, feel free to contact me. I can help you figure out how to modify your character's future rolls, if you want.
The birth roll post and document have been updated with this info. Mods won't have to update the automod command since the 1d1000 doesn't change.
Ideas for additions, other comments, and criticisms are always appreciated! Feel free to post below. Opinions from medically-inclined folk are especially welcome! I'm a lowly first year medical student who knows nothing yet. Also feel free to yell at me for not studying and making your lives more complicated. Sorry ;)
Posted Oct 10, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC · edited