Medical experts say part of the sharp rise in the caesarean rate stems from South Korea's greater affluence over the last few decades, during which its society enthusiastically embraced Western medicine. Only now is the pendulum swinging back as Koreans rediscover the benefits of midwives and other long-standing medical traditions.
Kim Yon Ok, 56, selling cookies from a street stall in Seoul, the capital, thinks that some of South Korea's soul has been lost with its headlong rush into modernity. She says she was too poor even to afford a midwife, but her mother helped her deliver in their living room, passing on birthing skills she learned from her own mother.
"Young mothers these days are so impatient and afraid of labor pain, they easily get pushed into a caesarean by their doctor," she says as she pours batter onto a small griddle.
The first caesarean operation in Korea was performed sometime after 1917 at the Severance Medical College hospital in Seoul, which was set up by an American missionary, but home birthing remained common until the 1960s.
Traditionally, rice husks were strung over the door of the family compound after a birth, warning people to stay away for a few days to prevent infection--with red peppers added if it was a boy. After 1989, the entire population came under the national health insurance system, and 99% of births today take place in hospitals practicing Western medicine.
The move to reduce caesareans comes too late for Ahn Hyang Shim, who lies motionless most of the day in her hospital bed. Her family has put a picture of her newborn daughter on her monitoring equipment, hoping that one day soon she will wake up. Occasionally her eyes flutter, but she doesn't respond or recognize family members. Her husband and parents massage her hands and talk to her in soft, loving tones and pray for her at a Buddhist temple.
The baby is healthy and being taken care of by her father and grandmother at their home on the small island of Namhae in the south. But both the adults are tired these days, and the neighbors no longer come by to help as much as they did at the beginning.
One Patient's Family Preparing Lawsuit
The doctors originally admitted that the hospital made a mistake in one of the tests administered before the caesarean, but officials later reversed course and now are evasive, Ahn's father says. In frustration, Ahn's family is preparing a lawsuit despite the court's tough standards for questionable caesareans.
Ahn's attending anesthesiologist, Kim Seung Hye, quit the hospital in February and has reportedly left the country on an extended trip. Park Eun Soo, administrative director at Jinju Kaya Jamo Hospital, says the institution didn't do anything wrong. It appears that amniotic fluid entered the bloodstream and traveled to Ahn's heart, he says, "which, by the way, we're not liable for."
"Unless the mother dies and an autopsy is conducted, we can't be sure of the cause," he adds. "Judging from the fact that she hasn't come out of the coma in almost 10 months, though, it's doubtful she'll ever recover."
For family members, the fact that they have suffered such a cruel fate at a time of such potential joy has been devastating.
"How could we ever expect such a thing? We were told everything was normal," Ahn's father says. "It just breaks our heart."
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Chi Jung Nam in The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.
