Mother performs C-section on self; no anesthetic

. A Filipino mother, Janice Calipe, 28, who is a midwife, performed a C-section on herself. According to news reports, Janice might be charged for performing an abortion, which is a criminal act. Her mental state was eventually being assessed by psychiatrists but results have not been disclosed.

Inquirer’s Jeannette I. Andrade wrote: “Using an ordinary kitchen knife and with no anaesthetic, the woman slashed open her belly and uterus to remove a baby from her womb and then sewed herself up with a regular needle and thread. Her baby who apparently had reached full term, died as a result of the operation…

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

Dr. Mario Lato of Sta. Ana District Hospital in Manila said that Janice still had to go under the knife to undo the harm she had done 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 centimetres) of blood in her abdominal lining.”