Woman performs own caesarean with kitchen knife

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Woman performs own caesarean with kitchen knife

Last Updated: 2004-04-06 8:42:42 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Woodman

LONDON (Agence de Presse Medicale for Reuters Health) - A pregnant woman

desperate to save her unborn child successfully performed a caesarean

delivery on herself using a kitchen knife, doctors in Mexico report.

The team at the Dr. Velasco Suarez Hospital in San Pablo, Oaxaca,

describes the case in the International Journal of Gynecology and

Obstetrics. They said it was the first known report of self-inflicted

caesarean where both mother and child survived.

The 40-year-old woman, who lived in a small village without running

water, electricity and sanitation, had gone into labour at term but was

unable to deliver her infant spontaneously.

Fearing her baby would die in the womb -- as had happened in her

previous pregnancy, because of obstructed labour -- she used alcohol as

an anaesthetic before slicing her abdomen and uterus with a kitchen

knife.

After delivering a crying baby boy, the woman, who had not bled

excessively and was still conscious, asked one of her children to find

the local nurse for help. The nurse provided the necessary first aid and

emergency care, and arranged for admission to the hospital, eight hours

away by car, for further treatment.

" The maternal instinct for preservation of the offspring can, under

unusual circumstances, move women to perform extraordinary acts,

disregarding even their own safety and life, " the doctors write.

They call for social, educational, and health measures to be " instituted

all over the world, particularly in rural areas of developing countries,

to avoid such extreme events " .

SOURCE: International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, April 2004.

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org

[Guest guest]

I will no longer complain about an injection every two weeks!

Becky

[ ] Woman performs own caesarean with kitchen knife

Woman performs own caesarean with kitchen knife

Last Updated: 2004-04-06 8:42:42 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Woodman

LONDON (Agence de Presse Medicale for Reuters Health) - A pregnant woman

desperate to save her unborn child successfully performed a caesarean

delivery on herself using a kitchen knife, doctors in Mexico report.

The team at the Dr. Velasco Suarez Hospital in San Pablo, Oaxaca,

describes the case in the International Journal of Gynecology and

Obstetrics. They said it was the first known report of self-inflicted

caesarean where both mother and child survived.

The 40-year-old woman, who lived in a small village without running

water, electricity and sanitation, had gone into labour at term but was

unable to deliver her infant spontaneously.

Fearing her baby would die in the womb -- as had happened in her

previous pregnancy, because of obstructed labour -- she used alcohol as

an anaesthetic before slicing her abdomen and uterus with a kitchen

knife.

After delivering a crying baby boy, the woman, who had not bled

excessively and was still conscious, asked one of her children to find

the local nurse for help. The nurse provided the necessary first aid and

emergency care, and arranged for admission to the hospital, eight hours

away by car, for further treatment.

" The maternal instinct for preservation of the offspring can, under

unusual circumstances, move women to perform extraordinary acts,

disregarding even their own safety and life, " the doctors write.

They call for social, educational, and health measures to be " instituted

all over the world, particularly in rural areas of developing countries,

to avoid such extreme events " .

SOURCE: International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, April 2004.

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org