Woman Performs C-Section, on herself

This story just seems wrong on so many levels... Four years ago a 40-year old Mexican woman, alone in the middle of Nowhere, is giving birth to a baby. Her husband is getting drunk at the local cantina. She's been in labor twelve hours, and the baby isn't coming out. So she reaches over, grabs a butcher knife, slices open her stomach, reaches inside her uterus and pulls out her baby boy. Miraculously both her and the baby survive. When I read this story, it triggered all kinds of hoax alarm bells in my mind. How could anyone possibly do that, I thought. Wouldn't she have passed out from the pain? What about infection? Isn't it a little suspicious that there were no witnesses (though I suppose the very reason she did this was because there was no one around)? But when I did some research, sure enough the case has been described in a scientific journal. So it looks like the story is true. Amazing.

Birth/Babies

Posted on Sun Jun 06, 2004


Comments

According to local witnesses the story is true. Never underestimate the instinct of a mother to do everything she can to protect her children.

I am certain this isn
Posted by The Mexx  on  Mon Jun 07, 2004  at  12:07 AM
"sure enough the case has been described in a scientific journal. So it looks like the story is true."

So because it was published in a scientific journal it is true? Well... well. Looks like I'll have to teach a lesson of cartesian rationality to the master of hoax debunking, hehe! 😉

Scientific journals publish content that`s coming from a community of scientists -researchers and journalists- that are all highly qualified in their proper fields, but the trust that such a journal will give to a scientist for publishing an article or report will not always directly depend on "objective" criterias through their proofing methods for validating the information they`re about to publish. Would you publish in your college`s scientific journal a crappy article from Stephen Hawkins (no matter how unlikely it might be to happen)? I guess you would... as the article from Hawkins would drastically improve the image of your journal. That is one example of possible non-scientific behavior in a scientific journal, but there can be others which involve different issues, such as professionnal opportunism, peer favoring, intellectual lazyness... guess what else (sex?:)) Let`s not forget that scientists are humans, not machines.

Anyways... t`was just a minor detail. Keep on the good work, you`ve got a great site!
Posted by Christian Thiffault  on  Mon Jun 07, 2004  at  12:36 AM
Christian, I thought about the very points you raised as I wrote that line (but then I wrote the line anyway... laziness, I guess). In particular the 'case of the miraculous bullet' came to mind (http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/bullet.html), which was published in scientific journals but turned out to be totally bogus. I suppose I should have said that because I saw that a scientific journal had written about the case, I knew that the reporter hadn't just made it up off the top of her head. But the story is only 'true' if you're willing to place your trust in the doctors who published the article (which I see no reason, right now, not to do).
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Mon Jun 07, 2004  at  12:55 AM
That's Hawking, not Hawkins.
Posted by PlantPerson  on  Mon Jun 07, 2004  at  02:45 PM
This story was published in mexican newspapers. This woman cut her womb open with a kitchen knife and extracted the bay and placenta, then washed the wound with a mixture of alcohol and table salt, then she dressed the wound by wrapping a piece of cloth several times around her body, and then took her baby and made the 4 hour trip to the nearest hospital by bus, where she and the baby got medical attention. Really amazing.
Posted by Germanico  on  Wed Jun 23, 2004  at  05:45 AM
This are the links to the news report:

http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=3382

http://www.ippfwhr.org/global/news/novedades/article_s.asp?NewsID=194

http://www.terra.es/actualidad/articulo/html/act63585.htm

These, however, differ from the story I remembered from the printed news.
Posted by Germanico  on  Wed Jun 23, 2004  at  05:54 AM
whoa.

i always knew that a mothers love can save a child.

im kinda pissed off at the father, he should of been with his wife instead of getting drunk. what a stupid loser...
Posted by Eva  on  Fri Apr 07, 2006  at  08:02 PM
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