Fig. 1.

Illustration of the timing of events where intra-uterine foetal demise has occurred, to highlight the terms ‘post-mortem interval (PMI)’ and intra-uterine death interval. The degradation of tissue via autolysis (green arrow) occurs after the death of the foetus, whereas those of maceration (red arrow) occur only whilst the foetus remains in utero. In cases where the foetus is born alive and subsequently dies, maceration by definition will not have occurred and the body will only undergo autolysis