SEDALIA—A new mother-and-infant OB simulator is helping State Fair Community College nursing students at the Sedalia campus gain more experience and realistic training for childbirth maneuvers.

The high-fidelity Lucina maternal fetal childbirth simulator came with maternal-fetal physiology and can simulate childbirth and other female-specific health issues. The physiology modeling allows students to monitor and manage both patients without instructor intervention.

Dr. Rhonda Hutton Gann, associate dean of Nursing, said it’s often difficult for nursing students to get clinical experience with childbirth since it’s dependent on a woman coming to the hospital to deliver when students happen to be present.

“With Lucina, our students gain hands-on experience performing normal deliveries and pelvic exams to recognize cervical dilation, effacement, presentation, position, and station,” said Gann. “Using Lucina and the accompanying child, students are exposed to and manage care for multiple scenarios that include cultural and family dynamics, health care team interactions, and human physiology in high risk, emergency and normal care situations.”

The simulator also provides training for childbirth emergencies, such as maternal cardiac and respiratory arrest, breech deliveries and other deliveries that require special intervention.

The $92,000 simulator includes a fully instructional mother and a partially instrumented fetus, software, wireless workstation, and a patient monitor computer. Nursing faculty on the Sedalia campus received two days of training.

Seventy-five percent of the cost was paid by an enhancement grant and 25 percent by the college.

For more information about SFCC’s nursing program, contact Courtney Moon, Nursing program coordinator, at (660) 596-7426, at cmoon@sfccmo.edu or visit www.sfccmo.edu/alliedhealth.

Courtesy of SFCC

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