Caesar was born by the method now known as C-section are false. Although caesarean sections were performed in Roman times, no classical source records a mother surviving such a delivery. As late as the 12th century, scholar and physician Maimonides expresses doubt over the possibility of a woman's surviving this procedure and again becoming pregnant. The term has also been explained as deriving from the verb caedere, "to cut", with children delivered this way referred to as caesones. Pliny the Elder refers to a certain Julius Caesar (an ancestor of the famous Roman statesman) as ab utero caeso, "cut from the womb" giving this as an explanation for the cognomen "Caesar" which was then carried by his descendants. Nonetheless, the false etymology has been widely repeated until recently. For example, the first (1888) and second (1989) editions of the Oxford English Dictionary say that caesarean birth "was done in the case of Julius Cæsar". More recent dictionaries are more diffident: the online edition of the OED (2021) mentions "the traditional belief that Julius Cæsar was delivered this way", and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003) says "from the legendary association of such a delivery with the Roman cognomen Caesar". The word 'Caesar', meaning either Julius Caesar or an emperor in general, is also borrowed or calqued in the name of the procedure in many other languages in Europe and beyond. Finally, the Roman praenomen (given name) Caeso was said to be given to children who were born via C-section. While this was probably just folk etymology made popular by Pliny the Elder, it was well known by the time the term came into common use. Spelling The term caesarean is spelled in various accepted ways, as discussed at Wiktionary. The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) uses cesarean section, while some other American medical works, e.g. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary, use caesarean, as do most British works. The online versions of the US-published Merriam-Webster Dictionary and American Heritage Dictionary list cesarean first and other spellings as "variants". Society and culture Presence of father In many hospitals, the mother's partner is encouraged to attend the surgery to support her and share the experience. The anaesthetist will usually lower the drape temporarily as the child is delivered so the parents can see their newborn. Special cases In Judaism, there is a dispute among the poskim (Rabbinic authorities)