The Legacy of Infant Surgery without Anesthesia: Implications for Today

Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 6-7:15pm (Eastern)

~ Jonathon Erlen Lecture ~

Wendy Patrice Williams (Independent Scholar)

In the United States until 1986, it was standard medical protocol for surgeons to operate on infants and children under two without anesthesia or pain control; instead, paralytic drugs were given to keep them still, though conscious, albeit in an altered state. In 1952 at 26 days old, Wendy Patrice Williams underwent surgery for pyloric stenosis, and her memoir Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing the Trauma of Infant Surgery recounts the lifelong struggles she has endured with the preverbal trauma which resulted and also details the ways in which she has found to heal. Over many years as a blogger and as a result of the publication of her book, she has encountered numerous other individuals who have had similar histories and struggles, and in fact, anyone currently age 39 and older may be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from infant surgery without anesthesia or pain control, a practice largely unacknowledged in medicine and only beginning to be understood by mental health professionals as a source of preverbal trauma.

In her memoir, Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing the Trauma of Infant Surgery (University of California Health Humanities Press, 2023), Wendy Patrice Williams shares her story of healing from PTSD that resulted from a stomach surgery at one-month old. She reveals her discovery that pre-1987, it was standard practice that infants needing surgery were not given anesthesia or pain control. Wendy blogs at Healing Infant Trauma and appears in the film Cutdown: Infant Surgery without Anesthesia, produced by Roey Shmool and free to watch at the link. Wendy earned a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing at Mills College and taught English at the College of Alameda and Folsom Lake College. She also studied biological sciences at Barnard College and marine science at the University of Miami. More information is available on her author page.

This lecture will be online only. Attendance is FREE. Check back closer to the date for the Zoom link.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.