The Woman Who Performed Self-Caesarean Section

Inés Ramrez Pérez, a Mexican woman from the state of Oaxaca, made headlines in March 2000 when she gave herself a Caesarean section. Even though she didn't know anything about surgery, the operation worked, and both she and her baby lived.

Self-performed caesarean section is a type of self-surgery in which a woman tries to give herself a caesarean section. Since the 18th and 19th centuries, there have been reports of women who gave themselves a caesarean section. Even though it usually kills either the mother or the child, or both, there are at least five known cases where it worked.

The Story Of Inez Ramrez

After 12 hours of continuous pain on 5 March 2000 around midnight, Ramrez sat on a bench and drank three little glasses of hard liquor. She then attempted three times with a 15-centimeter  kitchen knife to cut open her abdomen. Ramrez cut her skin along a 17-centimeter-long  vertical line several centimeters to the right of her navel, beginning near the bottom of her ribcage and finishing near her pubis.

Following an hour of surgery on herself, she reached inside her uterus and took out her son. She proceeded to sever the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors before passing out. After regaining consciousness, she bandaged her wound with clothing and dispatched one of her older sons to call for help.

Some hours later, the village health assistant came with another man, they found Ramrezin fair condition, along with her newborn child. He stitched her wound using the available needle and thread.

Three years earlier, she had given birth to a stillborn daughter. As the intensity of her labor increased, so did her concern for the unborn child.

Ramrez was eventually sent to the local clinic in San Lorenzo Texmelucan, located 2.5 miles away, and then to the nearest hospital, which was eight hours distant by car. She received surgical closure of the wound site sixteen hours later. On the seventh postoperative day, she needed a second surgery to treat complications caused by the C-section-related damage to her intestines. She was discharged from the hospital ten days after surgery and subsequently made a full recovery.

The doctors were so shocked by what they witnessed that they shared Ramirez's story at the next year's medical conference. The miraculous birth received little publicity until it was published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

One of the doctors exclaimed: "I couldn't believe that someone without anesthesia could operate on herself and still be alive. To me, it is incredible."

By sitting forward in the customary Indian birthing position as opposed to lying down, Ramirez insured unknowingly that her uterus was immediately under the skin and that she would not cut her intestines. The incision was somewhat deeper than what a doctor would make, and she was extremely fortunate to have avoided catastrophic injury.

When asked what guided her in the procedure, she responded, "I had slaughtered chickens and other animals."

Other Examples of Self-surgery

• Evan O'Neill Kane performed his own appendectomy on February 15, 1921, in an effort to demonstrate the usefulness of local anesthetic for such procedures.

It is thought that he was the first surgeon to do this procedure. Nonetheless, Kane has previously conducted appendectomies under local anesthesia (on others). In 1932, at the age of 70, he performed an even riskier self-operation by correcting his inguinal hernia.

• Jock McLaren, an officer in the Australian Army, performed an appendectomy on himself using only a pocket knife, a mirror, and no anesthesia in August 1944.

He then proceeded to stitch himself with "forest fiber" he had on hand. While unqualified to practice human medicine or surgery, McLaren has extensive understanding of veterinary medicine.