How Cesareans Came About

Delivery by a cesarean, which is when a baby is born through an incision that is done in the mother’s abdomen, is not something that has only been done recently. There is actually historic registered documentation that it has been done since a long time ago. In fact, there is even artwork from the Middle Ages that represented these kinds of births.

The reason why it is called cesarean has brought up a lot of questions and controversy. It was said that Julius Cesar was born this way. But it seems though that Julius Cesar was not actually born this way, because in those days it was not common that a mother survived this procedure. However, the mother of Julius Cesar survived the delivery & is represented in the renascent art that recreates the birth of the adult Cesar.

One of the theories of how the name came about was the relation with the term in Latin, cadere, which means cut. There is also a theory that says that the name cesarean comes from Lex Cesare, which were the laws of the ancient Roman emperors. One of these laws ordered that any woman that died during pregnancy was required to be submitted to a cesarean so that the baby could be baptized. Later on this law become a canonical law of the Catholic Church.