One Twin’s Difficult Birth Puts a Project Designed to Reduce C-Sections to the Test

Doctors step beyond routine procedure and show natural childbirth possible

Childbirth is one of the most important moments in a family's life, often presided over by an ad hoc and shifting team. Now a project aimed at reducing C-sections is proving it can be done better. Pixabay

The tiny hand and forearm slipped out too early. Babies are not delivered shoulder first. Dr. Terri Marino, an obstetrician in the Boston area who specializes in high-risk deliveries, tucked it back inside the boy’s mother.

“He was trying to shake my hand and I was like, ‘I’m not having this—put your hand back in there,'” Marino would say later, after all 5 pounds, 1 ounce of the baby lay wailing under a heating lamp.