History
Prior to the arrival of C/S the fetus usually died during protracted labor and the mother's life was at risk as well due to infection, uterine rupture and bleeding. On occasion, if the baby was macerated and small, it collapsed sufficiently to be delivered. The shoulder presentation was a feared obstetrical complication.
In 1690 Justine Siegemundin, a German midwife, published Die Kgl. Preußische und Chur-Brandenburgische Hof-Wehemutter. This treatise for midwives demonstrated abnormal presentations at birth and their management. She was the first to describe a two-handed method of performing an internal rotation of the baby to extract it as a breech (a variation of which is performed today on the second twin, see above) using a sling. The procedure was useful provided the fetus was not impacted. Once the uterus had contracted around the baby tightly, destructive interventions were used to save the life of the mother.
Read more about this topic: Shoulder Presentation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)