High‐Fidelity Birth Simulators in American Culture: An Ecofeminist Analysis

Abstract

Mother was once a standard term for the womb, and rising of the mother, fits of the mother, and even simply mother were hysterical fits brought on by disturbance of the womb - Hypochondria, Aferriam-WebsterNew Book of Word Histories. Introduction Today, a new teaching tool, the high-fidelity simulator, is increasingly being promoted and implemented educate aspiring medical professionals in the United States about childbirth. machines are anatomically correct mannequins with the capacity simulate some aspects of labor. mannequin mother can be programmed vomit as well as verbalize pain and anxiety. Equipped with a motor in its stomach, the machine is able birth an accompanying mannequin child and placenta. Medical scholars Roaxane Gardner and Daniel B. Raemer tout the use of high-fidelity simulators as teaching tools for identifying clinical error, reducing clinical risk, and improving clinical outcomes (110). Proponents claim that simulators improve students' confidence, time-management, leadership and critical thinking (Leigh and Hurst 2). Gardner and Raemer go so far as proclaim, The days of relying on the apprenticeship style of learning in obstetrics and gynecology have passed (Gardner and Raemer 119). What appears be significantly lacking from the growing body of literature endorsing such teaching tools are the potential drawbacks of their use, including, for instance, their capacity perpetuate the presentation of as pathological and birthing women as passive patients. While even some midwifery schools, at times, utilize such technology, they are always secondary live models, role playing and first-hand experience (Phillips).1 Moreover, students are introduced not only abnormal births but normal, mother-led births, too. Indeed, with some important representational adjustments, simulators might be acceptable as a means of teaching students basic anatomy and emergency scenarios. However, simulators are purposed do much more than this. As Nelson explains, They're teaching [medical professionals] how manage a woman when she is in labor, how manage a baby when they're in birth, which means taking absolute control. [They're] not leading by following what's actually happening, but they're learning literally manage the whole thing. In her seminal 2010 article on simulation, Obstetrical Nursing Experience Simulation, Filling the Gap, Deborah A. Raines makes the case for use of high-fidelity simulators educate nurses on grounds that they provide important learning opportunities unavailable in the clinical setting. She writes, A student or a new labor and delivery nurse could potentially complete an entire clinical rotation or orientation period and not experience some of the common or high-acuity events that a nurse needs come into contact with be prepared provide safe and effective (112). Raines goes on explain that Highfidelity simulators allow students to apply knowledge and skills used assess and intervene in care situations (114). Absent from such analysis is any concern that medical professionals, nurses and obstetricians, alike, are likely complete their medical training without having witnessed a normal birth, a that did not require medical intervention. One can certainly appreciate the desire teach healthcare workers practice medical techniques without threatening the safety of the patient (Raines 114). However, viewed through the lenses of ecofeminism and traditional midwifery, the ways that such simulators are being implemented tends perpetuate a dualistic conceptualization of women and birth, in which birthing women and the natural world are backgrounded and dominated, while medical professionals are pushed the foreground as birthing agents. Arguably, mannequin simulators epitomize and, thus, recapitulate the medical conceptualization of as a project that relies upon the supervision, technological control, and skill of the medical authorities rather than mothers and natural processes. …