How MamaBirthie has impacted the Nordic region

Simulation training has been a part of midwifery since the 1800s. There were task trainers and manikins made of different materials and different functions that were also put into simulations. In those early days hundreds of years ago, those manikins were made with real bones and leather. While the material is different in our modern times, the functionality and shape are similar to what we use today. But the action is similar as well to reproduce and simulate what would happen in a birth.

Our training consists of more low-fidelity equipment in high-fidelity simulation. Midwifery is so much about the contact with the person you’re taking care of. It’s more important to have a real person/simulated patient (SP) to discuss with and have a low-fidelity manikin to manage what is needed for skills.

While we do have high fidelity simulators and manikins, we find that the trainees feel more comfortable when they have a real person there. Of course, there’s certain things you must do on a high-fidelity simulator, we try to use MamaBirthie as much as possible. It is so easy to adapt and use it in peer-to-peer regardless of sex or age of the participants. This allows us to use it across the entirety of experience and competencies. 

MamaBirthie can be used in many ways. I can use it to demonstrate theory lessons in class, as a task trainer, or in a highly complex training simulation. It is versatile and can be adapted to the situation. One of the reasons I love it so much is that you can put it on a real person and get out what is needed from the specific situation.

At the university, we have studies for nursing, paramedics, midwifery, and public health nursing. Simulation is a part in all of these trainings. From the start, they’re doing training with basic and practical skills, like “how to be with the patient” all the way to the end where it’s things like taking care of complicated births. MamaBirthie simplifies each of these modalities.

There are some maneuvers and things you can’t do with MamaBirthie or any low-fidelity manikin. But you can still have high fidelity simulations and include a SP with MamaBirthie. It also helps with the peer-to-peer as it trains both the person standing in as the patient and the person practicing. They get to experience things like how the baby moves from both perspectives.

The ability to train birth in different positions, something that isn’t possible with other manikins I’ve used, is a difference-maker. As midwives, we take care of the natural, normal birth. That means that it should be trained in a normal, physiological situations which often requires different positions like on her side, all fours, upright. To be prepared you must train and MamaBirthie is above and beyond in this respect.

I put the trainees in position to train a lot so having a quick and straightforward manikin like MamaBirthie is extremely beneficial. First, they train in the peer-to-peer modality and then with me. Repetition until they’re comfortable is very important. I try to be strict and say, “what are the goals?” “What are we trying to accomplish?”. This builds the soft skills to ensure that they’re prepared and able to take the birthing person’s thoughts and wishes into consideration. Being able to have MamaBirthie being worn it enables training by both parties. 

It’s so important that students both give feedback and that we listen to it. They have expressed appreciation that they can train birth in different positions with no prep time. MamaBirthie has also gained positive feedback for helping with soft skills as learners are able to empathize with the birthing person as they all get to wear MamaBirthie so when they direct in their future practice, they have an idea of how it is for their patient as they have all had to do it in the simulation. 

It allows us to prepare learners to embody a variety of different patients to address challenges and different experiences they will have in practice. It really helps in building soft skills and learning to respond to both verbal and nonverbal communication. 

MamaBirthie with C-Section really helps the students to understand the other professions. A short time ago, a recently graduated midwife was training with MamaBirthie with C-Section. They related back to me that after training, unprompted, “Now I understand why the OB GYN doesn’t take the c-section as the first choice!  I have a better understanding now, so I see why it’s so important to work in the same direction.” That’s something, even if I talk for some hours, that learners can only learn in practice and not from hearing a lecture.

Yes. As I mentioned, the idea is to “train early, train often, train again”. For that, MamaBirthie is so easy. So easy to take from the bag and put back. You don’t have to prepare it before, you don’t have to clean it afterwards, you don’t have to connect it to anything. And to see if they do it in the right way is also simple. You can put it on the table and you can see the hand skills to see if they’re doing it correctly and how they do it. I love to use it as it’s easier for not only me but for them to see what they’re doing it.

Whether you’re testing or training the learners, it is vital to train the soft skills and relating to the patient and their families. When focusing on the fidelity, it’s important not to miss out on the aspects around it. MamaBirthie helps build how we communicate with our patients but also within the medical community. When I take MamaBirthie around to the nursing students, the paramedic students, the public health students, and the physiotherapist, it created a deeper, interdisciplinary understanding on the abdominal section. Just looking and seeing it and understanding just the scale and depth of the operation. In so many ways, MamaBirthie provides learning that is impactful.