A Mexican woman became a sensation by making herself a caesarean section with a kitchen knife

Usually, a caesarean section is performed when a woman in labor cannot give birth on her own. The decision on such an operation is made by doctors, and it is performed by surgeons under epidural or even general anesthesia. But in the history of medicine, there is one case when a woman performed a cesarean section at home, without anesthesia, surgical instruments and even without outside help.

Inez Ramirez was born in 1960 in the Mexican state of Oaxaca in a small Indian village. All her life, the woman was engaged in peasant labor and gave birth to children. By the age of 40, Ines had 7 children, while it is known that two more died in childbirth.

Inez Ramirez

In the village where Ines and her husband live, there is no hospital or even just a doctor, so all deliveries were usually taken by the woman's husband. The tenth birth in a row began quite inopportunely, when the man was away and the woman had to cope on her own. Ramirez noticed that something was going wrong when the contractions intensified as much as possible, but the attempts did not begin.

The woman in labor realized that the problem needed to be solved independently, because she could lose consciousness from the pain and then die with the baby. There was only one option – to cut the stomach with a knife and get the child yourself. Ines did not know how such operations were performed and had very vague ideas about anatomy, but there was no other way out.

The same knife that replaced Ramirez's surgical scalpel

There were also no surgical instruments or medical preparations for anesthesia at hand. To reduce the pain, Ramirez drank three glasses of homemade liqueur, and used a kitchen knife with a 15-centimeter blade as a scalpel.

The woman made a vertical incision with a knife 17 centimeters long, which began almost from the ribs. It didn't work out for her right away, but only on the third attempt. After that, she took out the baby with her hands and cut the umbilical cord before fainting from pain and blood loss.

After a self-performed operation, a quite neat scar remained

By this time, help arrived in the person of a local veterinarian, who was brought by the woman's 6-year-old son. He gave the woman first aid and sewed up the wound with ordinary sewing threads. In order to receive full medical care, Ramirez had to be taken to a hospital 80 km from her village.

Doctors, having learned the woman's story, did not want to believe in her, because the history of medicine did not know such cases. It was a miracle that Inez and her newborn son Orlando survived. In addition, it should be taken into account that 16 hours have passed from the moment of the artisanal operation to the arrival at the hospital.

It was this building that served Ines as an operating room

Of course, there were complications. When examining the woman, it turned out that by making an incision, she damaged the intestines. The doctors did “work on the mistakes” and just 10 days later, the mother and child returned home. Ramirez became a celebrity and her house was besieged almost every day by journalists from Mexican TV channels and newspapers.

In an interview, Ines said that she was forced to take such a dangerous step by hopelessness, since the pain turned out to be stronger than a sense of self-preservation.

Today mom and her son Orlando Ruiz Ramirez are absolutely healthy

Doctors believe that randomness played a big role in the successful outcome of the operation. The woman intuitively chose the right place for the incision and miraculously did not damage vital organs. The case of Inez Ramirez is absolutely unique, so it got on the pages of the international medical publication "International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics", dedicated to obstetrics and gynecology.

Although no one had done Caesarean sections before Ines, independent surgical operations were performed repeatedly. However, in most cases, they were made by people associated with medicine.