Introduction

Human childbirth is a natural process but it is not always smooth and successful. To assist in difficult childbirth which may be dan­gerous to the fetuses and/or mothers, several important obstetric surgical procedures and instruments were invented, modified and refined over centuries, and have become the standard practice in modern obstetrics. In this chapter, the indications, the procedures, and the complications of these commonly practised obstetric sur­geries, including caesarean section (CS), instrumental vaginal de­livery, episiotomy, repair of perineal tear, routine controlled cord traction for the delivery of the placenta in the third stage of labour, and manual removal of retained placenta, as well as external ceph­alic version (ECV) will be discussed.