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Julius Caesar and the caesarean section
There are many legends surrounding the caesarean section. The name goes back to Gaius Julius Caesar, who is said to have been born this way. A nice story – but it can’t be true because the mother of the Roman Emperor died almost 50 years later. But an intervention of this magnitude would inevitably have meant her death at that time. She would have bled to death or died of an infection. The very idea scares us. The literal, correct derivation is much more banal: In Latin, “caesus” means cut, “caesura” cut, incision. The German word Kaiser is derived from Caesar and so we call the “sectio caesarea” Caesarean section. Section births have been performed since ancient times. For many centuries, however, mainly to treat a pregnant woman who dies in childbirth to rescue the child – maybe it was still alive. Mostly, however, in order to be able to bury it separately, as required by law.
Swiss emergency c-section
Another great story has been handed down from Switzerland in the year 1500. Too great to be true? Jacob Nufer, who as a sought-after pig castrator (!) is adept at handling knives, fears for the life of his wife, who is in labor with their first child. A number of midwives and surgeons stand around the bed, but cannot help her and expect the worst. for days. The man grabs one of his sharp knives and boldly makes a cut. He hands over the happily crowing baby to the midwives, and he sews up his wife’s stomach himself. Both survive. The family later had six more children. A well-known anatomist recorded this in his notes.
Advantages and disadvantages
It will be around 100 years before physicians include this method in their repertoire. Doctors first opened the abdominal wall from top to bottom. From 1881 the cut runs across – as it still does today. This Pfannenstiel incision was named after the gynecologist and obstetrician Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel, who perfected this technique in 1900. Legendary – and in this case demonstrably true.
The medical necessity of bringing a child into the world by caesarean section – for example if the pelvis is too narrow or complications with the umbilical cord occur – is increasingly receding into the background today. A desired caesarean section is planned out of fear or to catch a special date so that the vagina does not stretch out, maybe even to be able to have the abdominal wall tightened a little again. But: Compared to vaginal birth, the maternal mortality rate is about three times as high. In addition, caesarean babies are more likely to have breathing problems because water is forced out of the lungs during labour. They are also usually more susceptible to infections because they do not come into contact with the mother’s natural bacterial flora in the birth canal.
