Twilight sleep

Twilight sleep (English translation of the idiomaticcite news |first=H. J.
last=Boldt
authorlink=
coauthors=
title="TWILIGHT SLEEP."; An Inaccurate Translation of the German Daemmerschlaf.
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9504E6DE123FE233A25754C0A9649C946496D6CF
publisher=The New York Times
date=1915-02-05
accessdate=2008-08-05
quote=] "Dämmerschlaf") is an amnesic condition characterized by insensibility to pain without loss of consciousness, induced by an injection of morphine and scopolamine,cite web
url=http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10221
title=Twilight sleep
date=1999-08-22
accessdate=2008-08-05
publisher=] especially to relieve the pain of childbirth. This combination induces a semi-narcoticcite journal |last=
first=
authorlink=
coauthors=
year= 1915
month= August
title= Twilight Sleep: the Dämmerschlaf of the Germans
journal= The Canadian Medical Association Journal
volume= 5
issue= 9
pages= 805–808
id=
url= http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1584452
accessdate=2008-08-06
quote= From the foregoing it is evident that the Freiburg "Dämmerschlaf" has already undergone numerous modifications, that the method is really still in a state of development.] state which produces the experience of childbirth without pain, or without the memory of pain. The term 'Twilight Sleep' is also sometimes used to refer to modern intravenous sedation.

History

Developed in Freiburg, Germany, twilight sleep replaced chloroform, the previous treatment for childbirth pains popular during the 1800s.cite news |first=Tina
last=Cassidy
authorlink=
coauthors=
title=Taking Great Pains: An Abridged History of Pain Relief in Childbirth
url=http://wondertime.go.com/learning/article/childbirth-pain-relief.html
publisher=
date=
accessdate=2008-08-05
quote=] Developed by Dr. Carl J. Gauss,cite news |first=
last=
authorlink=
coauthors=
title=TWILIGHT SLEEP; Is Subject of a New Investigation
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E05EED8113EE733A05752C3A9679C946496D6CF
publisher=The New York Times
date=1915-01-31
accessdate=2008-08-05
quote=] who began research on the treatment in 1903, it was also sometimes known as the "Freiburg method". However, Gauss was not the first to suggest the use of the combination of morphine and scopolamine as a surgical anesthesia; in 1899, a Dr. Schneiderlin "recommended the use of scopolamine, combined with morphia, for the production of surgical anaesthesia".

Though introduced to the rest of the medical community in 1907, as of 1915, The Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that "the method [was] really still in a state of development", noting of many substitutions that different doctors had used in the place of morphine or scopolamine.

In 1915, the New York Times published an article on twilight sleep and the work of Hanna Rion, or Mrs. Frank Ver Beck, who had recently written a book entitled "The Truth About Twilight Sleep". In that article, Rion said that the consensus of 69 medical reports she had looked at said that "scopolamin-morphin is without danger to the child."

This consensus would eventually change as the negative side effects of twilight sleep came into the light.

Complications

Quote box
quote = It has been said that children born under the Freiburg method are born sleepy. Mrs Ver Beck states that out of 500 cases, 199 children showed a condition which indicated that the "injection had affected the child's organism."
source = TWILIGHT SLEEP; Is Subject of a New Investigation,"The New York Times".
width = 40%
align = rightInitially heralded as the dawning of "a new era for woman and through her for the whole human race," the Freiburg method was eventually abandoned due to negative side effects.

Some of these complications were emotional, i.e. that it removed the mother from the experience of childbirth, leaving her with no memory of the or of the child. As one Nebraskan woman stated of the experience of twilight sleep,

However, more severely, the drugs had depressive effects on the central nervous system of the infant. This resulted in a drowsy newborn with poor breathing capacity.

References