The first use of continuous caudal anaesthesia in a labouring woman was in 1942.

With the use of continuous caudal anesthesia, the woman and her baby survived.

The technique is called caudal anesthesia (kaw'dul; "tail" L) because of the region of the body punctured.

The caudal anesthesia hadn't helped much, because Bessi was psychologically as well as physically unfit for motherhood.

Hingson then collaborated with Edwards, the chief obstetrician at the Marine Hospital, to study the use of continuous caudal anesthesia for analgesia during childbirth.

The first use of continuous caudal anesthesia in a laboring woman was on January 6, 1942, when the wife of a United States Coast Guard sailor was brought into the Marine Hospital for an emergency Caesarean section.

Beginning in October 1941, Robert Andrew Hingson (1913-1996), Waldo B. Edwards and James L. Southworth, working at the United States Marine Hospital at Stapleton, on Staten Island in New York, developed the technique of continuous caudal anesthesia.