Docs keep close watch on woman who did C-section on self

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Sta. Ana District Hospital director and surgeon Dr. Mario Lato told the Inquirer Friday that the 28-year-old woman, a midwife, remained under close observation.

“We still do not know the complications of what she did to herself,” he said.

Using an ordinary kitchen knife and with no anesthetic, the woman slashed open her belly and uterus to remove a baby from her womb Wednesday afternoon and then sewed herself up with a regular needle and thread. Her baby which apparently had reached full term, died as a result of the operation.

“What she did was not a standard procedure,” Lato said. “That is not always done even by medical doctors. Her use of a kitchen knife could give her tetanus so we had to give her shots for that.”

He said the reason they could not predict the complications is because tetanus has a long incubation period that could take days or sometimes weeks. “This is why we still have to observe her condition.”

The hospital director said that even though the woman sewed herself up, she still had to go under the knife at the Sta. Ana District Hospital to undo whatever harm she may have inflicted on herself.

“She was only able to stitch together her skin and did not reach the uterus, which is the reason for the surgery. We removed 250 cc (cubic centimeters) of blood in her her abdominal lining,” Lato said, explaining that the uterus had continued to bleed after the woman’s do-it-yourself surgery.

Two hundred fifty cubic centimeters is equivalent to a quarter of a liter.

Lato said said hospital authorities were informed that the baby weighed two kilograms but they were not told its gender. “That weight is equivalent to a baby in full term or nine months,” the surgeon remarked.

Lato told the Inquirer that while they were curious as to what would possess anyone to cut herself up to remove a baby, the woman has refused to talk to anybody.

“She might simply be depressed or her silence might be a symptom of a more serious mental instability,” he said

He said that the woman will be subjected to a psychiatric evaluation to determine her mental state. “This has to be done because what she did was a criminal act,” he said.

“Her relative told us that the woman finished a course in midwifery, but midwives do not perform surgeries. It is not part of a midwife’s job. They can only help out in normal deliveries,” the doctor said.

The bizarre incident was discovered at around 1 p.m. Wednesday, inside the woman’s house on Nagtahan Street in Sta. Mesa when the woman’s 39-year-old aunt arrived at their home and found er niece sitting on a blood-covered bed with her abdomen slit and the skin over it apparently sewn together. The lifeless fetus and a kitchen knife she used lay near the woman.