We all went through labour today.
After a little introduction and a lot of handouts, we had a brief chat about what to expect in a normal delivery. The lady brought out a model pelvis and a (plastic) baby and showed us how the baby’s head has to twist around on its way out – transverse, to oblique, to antero-posterior. It looked like a tight fit, and a lot more complicated a process than it first appears.
Then we all gloved up, lubed up and assessed the dilation of various cervixes. Nobody thought it was strange when the lady brought out a box of plastic vaginas, and we all paired up and started feeling cervixes ... it wasn’t particularly realistic, with the hard plastic models, but we did our best. One girl offered to make it more authentic for her partner: “Do you want me to lie down and put it between my legs?” But nobody got the giggles, and nobody became embarrassed – until the electrician came to repair the air-conditioner. Six students with their fingers inside of model vaginas suddenly appeared in his line of vision, and it was all he could do not to run away before adjusting the temperature.
We finished the day by taking it in turns to “give birth” via a semi-realistic plastic model pelvis. One “Mum” had to push the baby through the birth canal, the “midwife” would assist by demonstrating panting and inject the oxytocin, and the “doctor” would be in charge of the whole situation. By the time we’d finished, the role-playing was becoming scarily enthusiastic – possibly scariest for our poor classmate, The Only Boy.
After a little introduction and a lot of handouts, we had a brief chat about what to expect in a normal delivery. The lady brought out a model pelvis and a (plastic) baby and showed us how the baby’s head has to twist around on its way out – transverse, to oblique, to antero-posterior. It looked like a tight fit, and a lot more complicated a process than it first appears.
Then we all gloved up, lubed up and assessed the dilation of various cervixes. Nobody thought it was strange when the lady brought out a box of plastic vaginas, and we all paired up and started feeling cervixes ... it wasn’t particularly realistic, with the hard plastic models, but we did our best. One girl offered to make it more authentic for her partner: “Do you want me to lie down and put it between my legs?” But nobody got the giggles, and nobody became embarrassed – until the electrician came to repair the air-conditioner. Six students with their fingers inside of model vaginas suddenly appeared in his line of vision, and it was all he could do not to run away before adjusting the temperature.
We finished the day by taking it in turns to “give birth” via a semi-realistic plastic model pelvis. One “Mum” had to push the baby through the birth canal, the “midwife” would assist by demonstrating panting and inject the oxytocin, and the “doctor” would be in charge of the whole situation. By the time we’d finished, the role-playing was becoming scarily enthusiastic – possibly scariest for our poor classmate, The Only Boy.
Giving birth
Yes, yes it is. It's a box of ... yeah.
2 comments:
Good story! I'm guessing you're going to start getting a lot of hits from google image search though...
I've been checking my tracker thingy, and not one person has been directed to this blog after searching for ... you know. I'm disappointed. Maybe they're spelling it wrong.
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