Before caesarean birth was invented, all women had their babies through vaginal delivery. Complications sometimes occurred during childbirth, and as there were no techniques for removing the baby, it was possible to wait for the death of the mother, the child or both.
Many say it is a myth that the name “cesarean” originated in the way the emperor Julius Caesar would have come into the world, as following a law that existed in Ancient Rome, this type of The operation was only performed after the mother's death, aiming to save the fetus still alive, which did not happen with Júlio Cesar, as his mother, Aurelia, survived after childbirth, having five more children after him.
All babies who survived after being removed from the womb of the mother who had died were called assignments or Caesars, hence the name for this type of delivery.
The first known Caesarean birth took place in 1500, in a small Swiss town called Sigershaufen, and was performed by a man named Jacob Nufer, on his own wife. Jacob was a simple man, used to neutering sows, and seeing his wife's suffering at the time of childbirth he decided, aided by two more midwives, to deliver the baby himself from an incision in the abdomen of the parturient. After removing the baby, Jacob closed the cut, just as he did with the nuts he neutered. The mother recovered well and the birth did not cause any problems for the baby who had normal development. After this fact, Jacob's wife gave birth to five more babies, all of them vaginally.
It was only in the 18th century that this type of delivery became an obstetric practice, but it was only done in very special cases, as the incidence of maternal death was very high. Currently, cesarean delivery has been improved, becoming safer for both the mother and the baby, being performed by doctors when there is some risk of life for the mother or child.
by Paula Louredo
Graduated in Biology