Who performed the first successful C-section?

Sigh... the good old reproduction unit. This trimester ended with a bang... I kind of ran out of time to get to all of the topics I wanted, so we ended on the high note of reproductive health. We started with the male, then the female, then covered pregnancy and early development. My 5th hour class asked me everyday if I was pregnant yet ;-) It became the class joke- they're pretty funny. When I do get pregnant they will probably know before a lot of you- just because even though I won't be their teacher anymore, they'll pop-in about once a week to ask! They also came up with a range of different ideas to make the announcement made known-from the morning announcements to a sign over my door that says NO... and would be flipped to the YES side.

To be honest, this was probably one of my favorite units to teach. Every one of my classes became a relatively tight-knit group, so the transition into a typically more uncomfortable subject matter wasn't difficult at all. I like to throw a lot of random but interesting health facts at my students on a pretty regular basis- so it became the perfect set-up for one of my favorite jokes. The day came in the unit where we discussed a lot of the different complications that could arise in a pregnancy and during labor. We talked about ectopic pregnancies, breech births, Cesarean sections, miscarriages, etc. I posed the question if they knew who the first person was to perform a successful C-section. They of course had puzzled looks on their faces, so I naturally enlightened them.

"Well, a lot of people aren't aware of this, but the first person to perform a successful cesarean section was actually a child that round-house kicked his way out of his mothers womb...his name was Chuck Norris. (And then because most of them hadn't caught on because of my matter-of-fact tone I continued.) He then proceeded to round house kick the doctor that was overseeing the delivery... because NO one delivers Chuck Norris!"

By the time the majority of the class had realized that I was totally joking they were in an uproar. Amongst a lot of laughter, there were "I can't believe she pulled a Chuck Norris joke!" "No way!" "That just made my day!" "I can't believe a teacher just said a Chuck Norris joke!" "Haha- Ms. Garrity you're hilarious!"

It was the best. I had told Keegan sometime last year that I couldn't wait for that part of the unit to come up again so I could use that joke. That morning when I talked with him he reminded me to not forget about the Chuck joke.... I almost did and it would have been so sad! I love my job and am so glad I married a man that has a better memory than me.


PS- Just in case you are curious about that random but interesting fact, the first 'recorded' person to have performed a successful c-section was a pig gelder in Switzerland by the name of Jakob Nufer in 1500. The main cause to perform a c-section was because the mother had died while in labor and they needed to get the baby out. In his case, his wife had been in labor for a REALLY long time... so he gave it a shot and she and the baby lived.

Another interesting fact is that in the 1800's only 15% of the mothers who had a c-section lived. That means that 85% of the time they were unseccesful!! So this Thanksgiving... I'm even more grateful for modern medicine!

Craziest fact ever- in 2000 there was a woman that performed a successful c-section on HERSELF! She and her son lived. Wow. I'm also thankful I'm not living in the mountains of Mexico with no phone and live 50 miles away from the nearest clinic while my husband is at a cantina and I'm in labor!