The interesting bit of trivia that the term "Cesarean"
(or Caesarean) in "C-section" was derived from the
means of Julius Caesar's birth is no longer believed.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that there is a lack
of noteworthy trivia surrounding this surgical procedure.
For example, despite numerous stories about successful
C-section births (such as Caesar's in c. 100 BCE, or
even literary births, like that of Macduff in Shakespeare's
Macbeth), the first documented successful
C-section – meaning with the survival of the
mother – occurred in 1738. And the C-section
was not performed by a doctor, but by an Irish midwife,
Mary Donally. (The first C-section by a doctor was
performed in England by Dr. James Barrow in 1793.)
Meanwhile, the first C-section in the British Empire
occurred in South Africa, and was performed by Dr.
James Miranda Stewart Barry (1795-1865) – a medical
officer in the British army, who was actually a woman
who lived as a man.
More recently, numbers for the year 2002 from the
US
National Center for Health Statistics show a
C-section delivery rate in the US of 26.1%. In Canada,
for the 1990s, C-section figures amount to around 18
to 19% of births.
However, research from the mid-1990s shows that only
10 to 12% of pregnancies require C-sections, and the
World Health Organization has said that no region
in the world is justified in having a C-section rate
greater than 10 to 15%.
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Article published on Oct 16
04 12:59AM.
