Named Noelle, the gestating automaton, hooks up to a laptop and can approximate breech births and failure to progress. It can be given IV fluids. The baby robot can be programmed to be born healthy and pink or blue and not breathing.
With this amazing innovation, doctors can practice cesareans, instrument delivery, suturing...
...and they never have to see the natural pattern of undisturbed birth, progressing on its own.
When I heard about this, my first thought was, Why? Is any obstetrician lacking in human births to attend? Is any OB short of practice regarding medical interventions?
We are getting farther and farther from knowing what normal birth looks like. Whatever situations our plastic-and-metal friend Noelle can imitate, undisturbed childbirth allowed to progress on its own, remains a mystery to those in medical training.
No one is asking me. But I think that obstetrical training should involve rotation through a homebirth practice. Just so they know that birth can be left alone and turn out well, so they know that women can give birth without medical assistance.
2 comments:
Bizarre isn't it? That's why I think it's important to keep talking about birth. I really feel that people have forgotten what birth is...Let's do our best to normalize birth as a natural process before we all become cyborgs~
I was going to write on this and am glad you did. I was too...befuddled by it...it's bad enough that we use a SIM man in nursing school...but for BIRTH?!
Hh
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