Bringing life into the world isn’t always as joyous as the media portrays. Several parents come through childbirth with physical, mental, and emotional trauma. But even among the most traumatic deliveries, the birth story of Inés Ramírez, a mother of nine in Mexico, likely catapults to the top of the list of the world’s most traumatic births.

The International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics reveals in a case report originally published in December 2003, that a 40-year-old mother of nine gave herself an emergency cesarean section and lived to tell the tale. This wasn’t a self-inflicted operation to test her fortitude and pain tolerance. This was an act of desperation, utilizing different areas of personal experience to guide her actions.

The mother lived in Oaxaca, a remote mountain town in Mexico without access to a local hospital. After delivering six previous children, she’s an expert on how childbirth is supposed to go, but during her next pregnancy, something went wrong. Labor didn’t progress as it should’ve, and the baby couldn’t descend through the birth canal properly, resulting in a stillbirth.

Living in an extremely rural area with little access to everyday necessities, Ramírez was accustomed to seeing goats slaughtered for food. This knowledge........

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