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Twilight sleep
 
 
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Twilight sleep (English translation of the idiomatic Dämmerschlaf) is an amnesic
Amnèsia

Amn?sia is an Italian language drama film directed by Gabriele Salvatores in 2002 in film.External links...
 condition characterized by insensibility to pain
Pain

Pain, in the sense of physical pain, is a typical sensory experience that may be described as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm....
 without loss of consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
, induced by an injection of morphine
Morphine

Morphine is a highly potent opiate analgesic Medication, is the principal active agent in opium, and is considered to be the prototypical opioid....
 and scopolamine
Scopolamine

Scopolamine, known by the names levo-duboisine and hyoscine, is a tropane alkaloid Medication with muscarinic antagonist effects. It is obtained from plants of the family Solanaceae , such as henbane, jimson weed and Angel's Trumpets , and corkwood ....
, especially to relieve the pain of childbirth
Childbirth

Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the delivery of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus. The process of normal human childbirth is categorized in three stages of labour: the shortening and dilation of the cervix, descent and delivery of the infant, and delivery of the placenta.....
. This combination induces a semi-narcotic
Narcotic

The term narcotic is believed to have been coined by the Greek physician Galen to refer to agents that benumb or deaden, causing loss of feeling or paralysis....
  state which produces the experience of childbirth without pain, or without the memory
Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's mental ability to store, retain and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of mnemonic....
 of pain. The term 'Twilight Sleep' is also sometimes used to refer to modern intravenous sedation
Intravenous sedation

Intravenous Sedation is a method of administering drugs directly into the bloodstream in order to diminish consciousness to a patient. There are various levels of sedation....
.

History
Developed in Freiburg, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
, twilight sleep replaced chloroform
Chloroform

Chloroform, also known as trichloromethane and methyl trichloride, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CarbonHydrogenChlorine3....
, the previous treatment for childbirth pains popular during the 1800s.






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Encyclopedia


Twilight sleep (English translation of the idiomatic Dämmerschlaf) is an amnesic
Amnèsia

Amn?sia is an Italian language drama film directed by Gabriele Salvatores in 2002 in film.External links...
 condition characterized by insensibility to pain
Pain

Pain, in the sense of physical pain, is a typical sensory experience that may be described as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm....
 without loss of consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
, induced by an injection of morphine
Morphine

Morphine is a highly potent opiate analgesic Medication, is the principal active agent in opium, and is considered to be the prototypical opioid....
 and scopolamine
Scopolamine

Scopolamine, known by the names levo-duboisine and hyoscine, is a tropane alkaloid Medication with muscarinic antagonist effects. It is obtained from plants of the family Solanaceae , such as henbane, jimson weed and Angel's Trumpets , and corkwood ....
, especially to relieve the pain of childbirth
Childbirth

Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the delivery of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus. The process of normal human childbirth is categorized in three stages of labour: the shortening and dilation of the cervix, descent and delivery of the infant, and delivery of the placenta.....
. This combination induces a semi-narcotic
Narcotic

The term narcotic is believed to have been coined by the Greek physician Galen to refer to agents that benumb or deaden, causing loss of feeling or paralysis....
  state which produces the experience of childbirth without pain, or without the memory
Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's mental ability to store, retain and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of mnemonic....
 of pain. The term 'Twilight Sleep' is also sometimes used to refer to modern intravenous sedation
Intravenous sedation

Intravenous Sedation is a method of administering drugs directly into the bloodstream in order to diminish consciousness to a patient. There are various levels of sedation....
.

History


Developed in Freiburg, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
, twilight sleep replaced chloroform
Chloroform

Chloroform, also known as trichloromethane and methyl trichloride, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CarbonHydrogenChlorine3....
, the previous treatment for childbirth pains popular during the 1800s. Developed by Dr. Carl J. Gauss, 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 effect
Side effect

Side effect can mean:* Adverse reaction, an unintended consequence specifically arising from drug therapy* Therapeutic effect, an unintended but desirable consequence of any kind of medical treatment...
s of twilight sleep came into the light.

Complications


Initially 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
Mother

A mother is a biological and/or Maternal bond female parent of an offspring. Because of the complexity and differences of the social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to define a mother in a universally accepted definition....
 from the experience of childbirth, leaving her with no memory of the labor
Childbirth

Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the delivery of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus. The process of normal human childbirth is categorized in three stages of labour: the shortening and dilation of the cervix, descent and delivery of the infant, and delivery of the placenta.....
 or delivery
Childbirth

Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the delivery of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus. The process of normal human childbirth is categorized in three stages of labour: the shortening and dilation of the cervix, descent and delivery of the infant, and delivery of the placenta.....
 of the child. As one Nebraska
Nebraska

Nebraska is a U.S. state located on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States and Western United States.Nebraska probably gets its name from the archaic Chiwere language words ?? Br?sge or the Omaha-Ponca language N? Bth?ska meaning "flat water," after the Platte River that flows through the state....
n woman stated of the experience of twilight sleep,

However, more severely, the drugs had depressive effects on the central nervous system
Central nervous system

The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that functions to coordinate the activity of all parts of the bodies of multicellular organisms....
 of the infant. This resulted in a drowsy newborn with poor breathing capacity.