Touch Surgery (now part of Medtronic) · Technical Director
Midwifery best practice for natural births
Shown at the UN
Over three months at Touch Surgery, I worked side by side with a practising midwife, who had personally delivered hundreds of babies, to build an interactive 3D simulation of best-practice natural birth. The finished simulation was presented at the United Nations and shared with maternity teams around the world.
- Client
- Touch Surgery (now part of Medtronic)
- Role
- Technical Director
- Year
- 2019
- Duration
- About 3 months
- Specialty
- Obstetrics and Gynaecology
The problem
In many parts of the world, birth is still managed with methods that date back a hundred years. Women are often told to labour and deliver in unnatural, uncomfortable positions, and practices continue that modern evidence no longer supports. That costs women their comfort and dignity, and in the worst cases it puts mothers and babies at risk. The aim was to put the best modern techniques in the hands of the midwives and birth attendants who need them most, wherever they work.
What we built
We built a step-by-step 3D simulation of a hands-on technique to support a vaginal birth for a low-risk pregnancy, following the World Health Organization's 2018 recommendations on intrapartum care. It takes the learner through:
- The physical changes of labour
- Continued assessment of the woman throughout labour
- Respectful support that keeps the woman in control and protects her dignity
- Safe delivery of the baby
- Perineal support techniques to reduce injury
- Delivery of the placenta and perineal inspection
- Supporting skin-to-skin contact straight after birth
It's designed to spark discussion about how birth care varies between settings, and to show clearly what good care looks like.
Built with a midwife who has delivered hundreds of babies.
How we made it
The midwife was part of the team full time for the whole project. Every movement, position and step was checked against her real experience of hundreds of deliveries, so the simulation is clinically accurate as well as clear to follow. My job was the technical direction of the 3D build: making the anatomy and movement look and behave realistically, and building the systems that let us refine each stage quickly as her feedback came in.
The result
The simulation was released in the Touch Surgery app in April 2019 and presented at the United Nations, where it was very well received. From there it was shared with maternity teams around the world, to help replace outdated practice with modern, woman-centred care, with the goal of reducing complications during birth and helping to lower childhood mortality.
More of my work at Touch Surgery is on the Touch Surgery project page.