I delivered a baby today! It was an amazing experience. Well, maybe not as miraculous as most I delivered a baby from a computer simulated pregnant woman named Noelle. It was very neat though. Noelle is completely controlled by a computer and many scenarios can be run on her. We, however, just did a normal, uncomplicated birth. You have to guide the baby out, just like in a real birth, the only difference is that there is never a breached birth. The mechanism that pushes out the baby only attaches in one way, so the baby is always in the ideal position. The umbilical cord, however, can be wrapped around the baby's neck, so you have to check for that possiblity.
We learned about various methods of dating the pregnancy and determining fetal position. Noelle's belly does not really allow for palpation of the baby, so we hid the baby under a blanket to practice Leopold's maneuvers. We also learned how to determine how far dialated the mother is and about stages of labor. It was a very good session because there was only about 10 students in the session.
I hope that the simulations become a bigger part of our ciriculum and I think it will later in the year and during next year.
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