The Empress disliked Natalia Alexeievna, and the court gossiped that she didn't allow the doctors to save her daughter-in-law. The autopsy, however, showed that the Grand Duchess had a birth defect called spinal curvature (scoliosis), and reportedly in childhood she suffered from a hunchback or stoop, which was corrected, according to the custom of that time, with a rigid corset, which led to an incorrect arrangement of the bones in such way that could be impossible for Natalia to have a baby naturally through the birth canal, and that the medicine of that time was powerless to help her.