A Real Midwife Teaches Childbirth in Second Life

Last week I mentioned the phenomenon of roleplaying childbirth in Second Life, mainly a fun (if off-putting, to many) social gaming experience, but there's a serious side to virtual childbirth, too. This is the blog of a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery, at a New Zealand college, who uses Second Life as an education tool to teach real midwifing skills. It seems to be in the preliminary stages, but she has a lot of useful advice for educators, and at one point, has an enlightening conversation with a virtual, roleplaying midwife: "[S]he said that many women who role play pregnancy and birth in Second Life are women who cannot have children in real life." Fascinating stuff, with a follow-up tweet here. Image courtesy Sarah's Musings.

Comments

[Sarah Stewart]

Thanks for blogging about our virtual birthing unit project. As you say, we're still developing it but hope to go live in about 10 days. We hope that it will give midwifery students the opportunity to 'practice' their communication and decision-making skills in situations when women are in labour - you cant 'practice' very easily on real, live women :)

When I started this project I didn;t realise that women role-played pregnancy and birth. What I'd like to do is the merge the two aspects of SL and bring the role playing women together with the students so the students get the chance to interact with 'real' women in SL, not just each other. Would love to hear from your readers if they have any other ideas about how SL could be used for midwifery education.

[Amara Parmelee]

I have to agree. I'm unsure of my standings as far as giving birth in real life, but I found my SL pregnancy to be very rewarding. At times, I even questioned whether I'd want to go through the trials of pregnancy while doing so. All in all though, I loved it.

Always interesting what educators use Second Life to teach. I hope she sees success with her classes.