Simulator lets doctors practise for emergency Caesareans

A simulator that trains doctors in how to perform emergency Caesareans could help to reduce the number of babies dying in childbirth.

Experts at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, who helped create the device, hope it will be used across the NHS and will reduce the risk of serious or fatal complications during delivery.

It comes as a separate five-year project gets underway this week to cut by half the 500 full-term babies who are stillborn, die within a week or suffer brain injury in the UK each year.

The device, known as Desperate Debra, is a silicone replica of a pregnant woman’s abdomen.

It simulates difficulties experienced during advanced labour and emergency C-sections.

Of the 129,742 births in London hospitals in 2012/13, 22,827 were performed by emergency Caesarean, including 1,369 at St Thomas’.

Doctors intervene when the baby’s head gets stuck and the situation could become life-threatening.

Professor Andrew Shennan, consultant obstetrician at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “The need for an emergency Caesarean can develop very quickly and situations can rapidly deteriorate.

“Although thankfully these life-threatening situations are rare, this means that doctors often do not get to experience them before they are faced with them for the first time.

“Desperate Debra will allow doctors to experience and practise dealing with the difficulties of these scenarios.”

The project was funded by Guy’s and St Thomas’ charity and also involved experts at NHS Fife. In trials, around nine in 10 doctors found it to be a useful training device, according to a study published today in the Obstetrics & Gynecology journal.

Dr Graham Tydeman, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at NHS Fife, said: “Simulators that accurately recreate a clinical experience, particularly in rare emergency situations where consequences can be catastrophic, must be the way forward.”

About 4,000 babies a year are stillborn in the UK, a figure that has remained high since the Nineties.