My First Delivery

When a baby emerges from the birth canal, you must remember to support his head and protect the mother. The baby will rotate his head a certain way and your hand must direct the baby as it enters the world. Once the head is out, the shoulder must be cleared and then with some careful pulling, you can assist the baby to complete his full journey out the womb.

I delivered my first baby following the steps I outlined above. The baby I delivered was really cute and very plastic (a mannequin that was propelled down the plastic womb with the assistance of motor). For some reason, the motor was not working and the baby relied on manual assistance to make it down the birth canal.

Learning to deliver a baby was part of a series of activities during an Obstetrics/Gynecologist surgical skills session organized by the department of OB/GYN with the assistance of a second year medical student. In addition to the learning about all the neat toys OB/GYN doctors use, we had an opportunity to learn from different women's health specialists about the spectrum of procedures and treatments used in OB/GYN.


Along with delivering a baby, we learned about laproscopic surgeries performed by Obstetricians and gynecologists.

To simulate laproscopic surgery, a type of surgery commonly used, we operated in a box with the assistance of a camera and long instruments. Our hands moved the instruments and we looked at monitor to guide our instruments.

Our tasks were simple and fun and included peeling avocados using the long claw-like tools to help us develop hand-eye coordination when we are working in limited space, placing beads into boxes, playing with strings to simulate "running the bowel" and writing "hi to lo" on a balloon to simulate how to make incisions. The end result of these exercises was a deeper understanding of a field of surgery and developing the unique depth and hand-eye coordination needed to fully work in such a limited space.

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"I will never think of a papaya the same way," a male classmate whispered to me before we started our next activity. I agree.

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We used papayyas to represent the uterus since the texture of a papaya is similar to that of uterus for our final activity: IUD placement (a form of birth control that is 99% effective). After clamping the bottom of the papaya, we inserted the T shaped IUD into the superior end and pulled back. "Go guys can go right to second year of residency," said our instructor after she watched us place the IUDs into the papayas.

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Along with IUD placement, we learned how to suction the papaya (there were no seeds left by the time we arrived). Suctioning blood from the uterus after birth has saved many lives in developing countries, where women die of bleeding after giving birth. We also learned how about how to acquire endometrial samples for cancer screening.

Missing two hours of biochemistry was so worth it! Making guacamole during the peeling the avocado activity, performing my first laproscopic surgery simulation and placing an IUD in a papaya are only a few of the highlights.

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If anything, I did deliver my first plastic baby today.