BOSTON (CBS) – Delivering a baby can be routine, or tremendously complex, jeopardizing the lives of both mother and baby. And that means health care providers need a lot of training, but we don’t want them to practice during real births.
On Monday, we got a closer look at the latest generation of birth “simulator,” a robot really, that goes by the name, Victoria. “This is Victoria,” says Jim Archetto from Gaumard Scientific, showing us what looks like a manikin. “You can see she’s a realistic, lifelike birthing simulator,” adds Archetto.
We got a look at the robot at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians at the Boston Convention Center. “She will deliver a baby, she will speak during that delivery, her eyes blink,” says Archetto.
And she’s connected to fetal heartbeat and contraction monitors, her oxygen levels are being measured and so is her blood pressure. All in real time. “That’s beneficial for health care providers because they get to practice these difficult, challenging deliveries on a simulator before they have to do it on a real, live patient,” he adds.