THE PAIN magicians

YOU WALK THE PATH to birth with your gynaecologist, but it’s the anaesthetist – whom you often only meet right before the caesarean – who becomes the biggest pillar of support during the operation. An anaesthetist’s main aim is to get their patient through the caesarean pain-free and alive, says Dr Pieter Bettings, an anaesthetist from Johannesburg and a former president of the South African Society of Anaesthesiologists.

But anaesthetists (alternatively known as anaesthesiologists, especially in the US) also provide important moral support. “Women usually don’t speak to the gynaecologist, because they’re busy doing the operation and don’t have time to chat. So, all the questions come to