You’ve heard it on TikTok, in a group chat, or from that one friend who «knows a lot of stuff»: «Chainsaws were invented for childbirth.» Cue the horrified face.
But did you know that the viral version of this story is only half true? And that the real story is a mix of 18th-century medicine, a very ambitious German surgeon and some seriously heavy engineering? Grab a snack (maybe not a sausage) and let’s untangle it.
Short answer: a hand-cranked chain saw really was designed by two Scottish doctors in the 1780s for a medical procedure. But it looked nothing like a modern chainsaw, and the tool you’d use on a tree was developed later, for lumber.
First, the medical part (brace yourself)
In the late 1700s, a baby could get stuck if the mother’s pelvis was too narrow, for example because of rickets. There were no safe C-sections back then, so surgeons tried a procedure called symphysiotomy: cutting the cartilage of the pelvis to widen the birth canal.
According to History.com, the first well-known symphysiotomy was done in 1777 by French doctors Jean-René Sigault and Alphonse Leroy, with a plain knife and no anesthesia. It was slow, and everyone involved wanted it to be faster.
Enter two Scottish surgeons, John Aitken and James Jeffray. In 1785, a text called Principles of Midwifery described their «flexible saw», a chain of tiny cutting links you pulled back and forth with handles. It was meant for symphysiotomy and for removing diseased bone. It’s the ancestor of the chain saw idea, and it was known as «Aitken’s saw.»
And did you know a German surgeon upgraded it?
Around 1830 (some sources say 1834), German surgeon Bernhard Heine built a version with a hand crank: the chain osteotome. Imagine a chain wrapped around a wheel, turned by a handle, designed to cut bone with precision. According to History.com, it was hard to master, and few surgeons could use it well.
So yes, the «chain» part of chainsaw has medical roots. But that’s where the horror-movie vibes end, because none of this was motorized and nobody was revving anything in an operating room.
So when did it become a lumberjack tool?
This is where the story moves out of the hospital and into the forest. According to Science Focus, the timeline looks like this:
- 1883: a patent for a «chain sawing machine» to make wooden boards.
- 1906: a patent for an endless chain saw designed to fell giant redwoods.
- 1918: Canadian James Shand patented the first portable chainsaw.
- 1926: Andreas Stihl patented an electric chainsaw for cutting wood.
- 1929: Stihl patented a gasoline-powered model.
After World War II, lighter aluminium parts and better engines finally made it possible for a single person to carry one. Before that, early chainsaws needed a two-person crew.
Plot twist: it wasn’t really «invented for childbirth»
Here’s where the viral claim falls apart. Fact-checkers and historians point out a few things:
- Symphysiotomy was a risky, rarely preferred procedure. A 2004 Scottish Medical Journal abstract, cited by TruthOrFiction, notes it «had too many complications for most obstetricians.»
- Historians don’t know how often Aitken’s saw was actually used in childbirth. The one case History.com describes in detail (1777) used a knife, not a saw.
- The device was a handheld, non-motorized tool. As TruthOrFiction puts it, the motorized chainsaw we know today was developed later by the forestry industry.
- Dr. Sara Ray of the Mütter Museum told History.com these tools weren’t used out of cruelty: surgeons were facing life-or-death choices for both mother and baby, and we shouldn’t judge them by modern standards.
So the honest version is: the idea of a chain with cutting teeth started in medicine, but the chainsaw you picture was built for wood.
Why does this myth spread so fast?
Because it’s the perfect clickbait: a tool everyone associates with horror movies and lumberjacks, tied to something as intense as childbirth. It’s shocking, it’s short, and it fits in a caption. The problem is that «invented for childbirth» skips every boring-but-important detail: the tool was manual, it was rare, and the powered version came from a totally different industry.
Fun rule of thumb for any «you won’t believe this was invented for…» fact: if it sounds like a movie trailer, check the sources before you share it.
The 30-second version (for your next group chat)
- Aitken and Jeffray described a flexible chain saw in 1785 for symphysiotomy and for cutting diseased bone.
- Heine turned it into a hand-cranked chain osteotome around 1830.
- Patents for chain saws meant for wood show up in 1883 and 1906.
- Stihl patented an electric chainsaw in 1926 and a gas-powered one in 1929.
- So the idea is medical, but the chainsaw you know is a forestry tool.
Myth or fact?
Myth: «The chainsaw was invented to help women give birth.»
Fact: a hand-cranked chain saw (Aitken and Jeffray, 1785) was created for a childbirth procedure called symphysiotomy and for cutting diseased bone, and Heine’s chain osteotome (around 1830) refined the idea. But it was a manual tool, probably used rarely in childbirth, and the powered chainsaw was developed decades later for forestry.
Sources consulted: History.com, article on the chainsaw’s origins and childbirth; Science Focus, «Why were chainsaws invented?»; TruthOrFiction, «Stop What You’re Doing and Google Why Chainsaws Were Invented»; Popular Science, article on the chainsaw’s childbirth origins; Scottish Medical Journal (2004), «The chain saw – a Scottish invention» (abstract, as cited by TruthOrFiction).