Midwives Train With A Virtual pregnancy
Just like many pregnant women Jessica Tate is slightly anaemic, would like a home birth and hers seems like a normal pregnancy.However Jessica is far from your average pregnant woman as she is only 'virtually pregnant'! Jessica is a computer programme designed to give students an early chance at practical diagnosis and she has been put together by two midwifery lecturers
Midwifery students are taken on an imaginary journey through the pregnancy of Jessica Tate - from its earliest stages, to early labour - using graphics, video and sound. As the mouse moves over the image, a picture of the uterus and foetus becomes clearer, revealing information gradually in the same way that would happen if the student used their hands to examine the woman. Throughout the programme, the students assess Jessica's progress and in addition there are video clips of interactions between the 'midwife' and Jessica in which the student is asked to assess good or bad communication skills.
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Now the programme, which has been running at Swansea University since 2004, has won a top award. Judges are so impressed with it that they hope to see the programme rolled out to other universities.
Dame Karlene Davies, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said: "This was a wonderful use of technology to explain the process of a pregnancy very clearly and simply. We were hugely impressed by the programme which will make a great difference to the midwifery students who will be using it."
Susanne Darra, one of the midwifery lecturers who helped create the programme with colleague Marian McIvor, said it had been important to them that they not only helped the students to learn through Jessica, but that they also used her to promote the idea of deliveries with the minimum intervention.
"We have a policy in our midwifery team of promoting a 'normal' birth and we wanted to present a 'normal' birth, but with a few challenges. So we decided that she would be on her own a lot of the time socially as her boyfriend is working away a lot. And that about half way through the pregnancy she would be quite tired and would have mild anaemia. Jessica wanted to have a home birth so the students had to think about that. She also had a bit of a false alarm and thought she was going into labour, but she wasn't........We just wanted to cover a few issues," said Ms Darra.
"We wanted to keep things normal, but challenge the students about what could go wrong," she added. "There is a big issue in the western world with 'problem' births and it doesn't have to be like this. We have a strong trend to alert people to problems, but most of the time things turn out fine."
Ms Darra said that other departments at the university had virtual training programmes and that this had inspired herself and Ms McIvor to write one for midwifery. The students love using the Virtual Pregnancy and say that it has made it easier for them when dealing with real-life situations.
Now the programme is being offered to other midwifery schools in Wales and it is hoped that this fun approach to learning will make a real difference for ensuring women get good support in labour."
January 2008
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