How VR is helping midwives deliver babies

Midwifery students now have to deliver babies as part of exams at Australia’s University of Newcastle — but they will do it in virtual reality.

The Australia’s University of Newcastle has begun a VR project that simulates a real-world delivery room. The program, which runs on PC, iOS and Android, puts midwifery students under the pressure of a “life-or-death situation” in the “safe, repeatable environment of VR,” said co-project leader, Jessica Williams, in a statement.

The program is designed to ease the transition from an educational setting to a real-world emergency room for new graduates and boost their confidence at work, which is important because “15 percent of births in Australia and New Zealand [require] some form of resuscitation.”

Incorporating VR into midwifery training could prove useful in improving maternal and infant mortality rates and other consequences caused by medical error.

According to a May 2016 letter from John Hopkins Medicine to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of maternal deaths due to medical error stands at 251,545.