08/20/2025
An incredible story. One that hopefully never has to be repeated.
In a moment of unimaginable desperation, a mother in rural Mexico achieved the extraordinary and survived against all odds.
Inés Ramírez Pérez endured a harrowing ordeal: 12 hours of excruciating labor with no access to medical care, no means of transport, and the painful memory of losing her previous child to a complicated delivery.
Residing in a remote one-room shack in Oaxaca’s mountains, without electricity, running water, or basic sanitation, the 40-year-old mother of six was entirely alone when her husband was away.
With the closest clinic more than 50 miles away, accessible only via perilous mountain paths, Pérez made a decision that defied all medical reasoning.
After drinking three glasses of strong liquor to dull the pain, she took a 6-inch kitchen knife and began cutting into her own abdomen.
Relying on her knowledge from butchering livestock, she made three vertical cuts totaling 17 centimeters—far larger than a standard C-section—and reached into her womb to deliver her son.
The procedure, illuminated by a single faint light, lasted over an hour. By instinctively squatting, she positioned her uterus to minimize harm to vital organs.
After severing the umbilical cord with scissors, she wrapped her newborn, named Orlando, in cloth, sent her 6-year-old son to seek help, and then fainted from the ordeal.
Hours later, village health assistant León Cruz arrived to find both mother and baby alive, with Pérez conscious and tending to her child.
Using a simple needle and cotton thread, he stitched her extensive wound. After an arduous 8-hour trip to the nearest hospital, doctors were astonished to find no infection, minimal blood loss, and a fully intact uterus.
Documented in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, Pérez’s case remains the only known instance of a successful self-performed C-section with both mother and child surviving.
