Page "Anne, Queen of Great Britain" Paragraph 27

Anne's final pregnancy ended on 25 January 1700, when she miscarried a stillborn son.

She had been pregnant at least seventeen times over as many years, and had miscarried or given birth to stillborn children at least twelve times.

Of her five liveborn children, four died before reaching the age of two.

Anne suffered from bouts of " gout ", pains in her limbs and eventually stomach and head, from at least 1698.

Based on her foetal losses and physical symptoms, one pathologist has diagnosed disseminated lupus erythematosus.

Alternatively, pelvic inflammatory disease could explain why the onset of her symptoms roughly coincided with her penultimate pregnancy.

Other suggested causes of her failed pregnancies are listeriosis, rhesus incompatibility, diabetes, and intrauterine growth retardation.

Rhesus incompatibility, however, generally worsens with successive pregnancies, and so does not fit with the pattern of Anne's pregnancies, as her only son to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, was born after a series of stillbirths.

Experts also rule out syphilis, porphyria and pelvic deformation as incompatible with her medical history.