The first stop? Back in time to the late 1700s, when the only real difference between medicine and torture seemed to be the room where it happened.

Medical devices may have been revolutionary for their time, but they were not winning any design or compassion awards.

Cesarean childbirth had been a practice for hundreds of years by that point, but the mortality rate for mothers was very high so it was only used as an absolute

last resort.

Some medical men (keyword: men) sought to find alternative methods for getting babies out during difficult births.

One method advocated by a French surgeon named Severin Pineau in the late 16th century was called symphysiotomy. It involved using a knife and saw to cut the cartilage of

the pubic symphysis to widen the pelvis.

Local anesthesia was used, but given the timeline, that isn’t exactly saying much.

For context, the first public demonstration of nitrous oxide as an anesthetic (for dentistry) wasn’t until 1845 in Boston.

That didn’t go too well because it was administered incorrectly and the subject screamed in pain.

Physicians were divided between the caesarian and the symphysiotomy. In 1780, two Scottish doctors named John Aitken and James Jeffray decided that cutting into pelvic cartilage by hand during labor

was too slow and painful.

The solution? Aitken and Jeffray developed a prototype for a tool that featured a chain of blades.

The chain would be wrapped around the cartilage and pulled in an alternating pattern to cut through. Think of someone cutting prison bars with floss.

The device was later improved upon by other medical men, including Bernard Heine, who added a hand crank to his “osteotome” so that the serrated chain could rotate in a

continuous motion.

Over time, cesareans became safer and rose in favor over symphysiotomies. The osteotome was proven useful for cutting other types of bones, so the tool wasn’t abandoned.

Instead it was made larger and used to cut bigger things

Eventually someone thought to add a motor and fuel, and voila! Trees became the new pelvic bones and mighty redwoods fell left and right.

Things sort of came full circle in the 1970s, when chainsaws became literal and metaphorical weapons for brutality against women (and horny teen boys) in films like “The Wizard of

Gore” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

There are still risks when undergoing a c-section because it is considered a major surgery, but things have surely gotten better.

Cesarean birth rates declined for the fourth year in a row in 2016, with experts arguing  that the procedure and other interventions were being overused.

The American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) now recommends delaying interventions until later in pregnancy, and doctors are providing non-medical support that is resulting in less women undergoing

the risky procedures.

It’s a much better way to go about things than the “saw first and find a better way to saw second” method that birthed the chainsaw.