Nursing students like Donna Nkurunziza (right, BSN `24), who hopes to be a women's health NP, took part in the first round of obstetrics simulations with the new tech in early March 2023.
"We're having a baby today!"
So said one of the BSN students taking part in a new kind of obstetrics simulation this week. The new wearable birthing tech—a $65k mechanized belly worn by a standardized patient actor who screamed, pleaded, panted, pushed, and, in one scenario, passed out (due to a simulated hemorrhage)—brought simulation scenarios and OB learning to a whole different level.
Part of a new investment and the brainchild of simulation educators Ryne Ackard, Jennifer Gaines, and Samantha Hudgins,and thanks to support from Dean Marianne Baernholdt, the device—buckled to the torso of the standardized patient actor—includes a cylindrical front-facing metal container into which a surprisingly pliant, lifelike infant (it's a boy!) is nestled in with a bag of pretend blood, then covered up again with a flesh-colored belly skin.
At the outset of the simulation, nursing students received information about their simulated patient and the roles they would play: baby nurse, provider, partner, etc.
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The new simulation brings a level of believability to nursing students' obstetrics learning and preparation.
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The wearable tech includes a way for nursing students to detect the infant's heartbeat, measure the mother's cervical dilation, and a way to massage the fundus to encourage the birth's progression.
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Excellent standardized patient actors like Abagail are critical to bringing the 15–20-minute birthing sequence to life.
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The new sim brings a dramatically higher fidelity level to students' readiness for labor and delivery rotations that many of them say is a lot closer to the reality they see in the hospital.
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Standardized patient actors scream, push, plead, pant, and even pass out, due to a surprise hemorrhage, during the life-like birthing scenarios.
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The male infant is surprisingly life-like.
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Shortly after the baby is born, the standardized patient actor births the placenta, which sometimes can emerge in parts, which can create a new challenge for nursing students.
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After each scenario, students gather to debrief about what went well, where the challenges lay, and what in their care protocols might have been improved.
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The new $65k wearable tech is strapped to a standardized patient actor, and includes a slowly descending, lifelike infant that is slowly, laboriously pushed toward and out the birth canal.
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The standardized patient actor wears a smartwatch that vibrates to queue her experience of contractions. Here, SP actor Abagail takes a selfie between births.
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Move over, Noelle. This birthing sim brings obstetrics practice to a new level of intensity.
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During the scenario, the infant descends into the lower portion of the simulated belly and slowly, laboriously out the simulated birth canal. Shortly after the child emerges, a placenta (which, in some scenarios, is birthed in pieces) makes the experience even more real.
The standardized patient actor wears a smartwatch that vibrates to queue the timing of her acted-out contractions.
Students and faculty say it's a version of birth as close to real as you can get in the sim lab, and dramatically more high fidelity than Noelle, the sim lab's other, entirely mechanized birth mannequin.
