Towards a forward engineered simulation of the cardinal movements of human childbirth

Abstract

The paper presents initial experiments on a basic forward engineered childbirth simulator. Polygonal models of a fetal skull and bony maternal pelvis were created. A simple physics model was implemented to model the mechanical contact interaction between the fetal head and the maternal pelvis. A series of experiments were run to establish whether this basic model would display the cardinal movements which are observed during normal labour. Though the first three movements were observed without needing reverse engineered action, the subsequent cardinal movements required the use of waypoints along the trajectory of the birth canal. It was concluded that more complex geometry, including a fully articulated fetus and the inclusion of soft tissue would be required to arrive at a realistic fully functional forward engineered human childbirth simulator.