Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World

by Tim Harford

Demanding procedures such as the use of forceps gave way to the more predictable use of the caesarean section, in which the mother’s abdomen is sliced open to retrieve the baby. Done well, the forceps delivery can spare the mother a major piece of surgery. But the C-section is simple, routine and easily taught. It’s a tidy, one-size-fits-all approach, because no matter why a baby is stubbornly stuck, the C-section will get it out. C-sections are now used in almost a third of all deliveries in the United States, and a quarter of deliveries in the UK – despite medical experts believing that only 10–15 per cent of deliveries require such operations. This is the logic of the factory floor, and it emerges once a simple score becomes available to the factory managers. But C-sections are no joke for the mother, who does not have her own Apgar score as she recovers from having her lower abdomen cut open.

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