This Tuesday, the staff of the Elmhurst hospital, together with local politicians, inaugurated a new labor simulation laboratory.
During the event, the nursing staff had the opportunity to practice an emergency delivery with a mannequin.
“When we do simulations we always talk as if it were a real patient,” explained Frederick Friedman, director of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Elmhurst hospital.
The laboratory is designed so that medical personnel can experience in advance with the mannequin that can speak and breathe the risky situations that arise in childbirth.
“So, for us it is very important that we are prepared and educate ourselves on all the possibilities that can happen,” said nurse Junia Valerio.
These simulations allow practice in high-risk childbirth in situations such as:
- Shoulder dystocia, when the baby gets stuck.
- Postpartum hemorrhage.
- Preeclampsia.
- Emergency cesarean section
- umbilical cord prolapse
Something vital for the community, since in this hospital, according to its records, they attended around two thousand deliveries during 2021. Of those, more than 60 percent were Hispanic women.
And in several of those cases, these women had no history of their pregnancy or were newcomers to the country.
“Sometimes they come already bleeding and we have to take them to the operating room as an emergency and we don’t know anything about the patient,” added Valerio.
In addition to that, this simulation room seeks to reduce deaths related to pregnancy, a problem identified mostly in the African-American community, according to the most recent study by the Department of Health.
Of the 41 pregnancy-related deaths in 2018, 21 were African American women, 14 Anglo women, and 3 percent Hispanic.
For that reason, the hospital used mannequins that represent the African-American community.
Her name is Jada and here I am helping her with her baby Jay, this is one of the first six dark-skinned mannequins to be used for simulation in the New York City Health and Hospitals system.
Recreating this room was part of a $12 million city government plan aimed at reducing deaths during and after pregnancy.
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