The first of Aveling's cases was that of a pregnant woman who was hanged by a Spanish Inquisitor in 1551 While still hanging, four hours later, two children were said to have dropped from her womb.

The second case was of a woman of Madrid, who after death was shut in a sepulcher.

Some months after, when the tomb was opened, a dead infant was found by the side of the corpse.

Rolfinkius tells of a woman who died during parturition, and her body being placed in a cellar, five days later a dead boy and girl were found on the bier.

Bartholinus is accredited with the following: Three midwives failing to deliver a woman, she died, and forty-eight hours after death her abdomen swelled to such an extent as to burst her grave-clothes, and a male child, dead, was seen issuing from the vagina.