Design of a new instrumented forceps: application to safe obstetrical forceps blade placement.

Today, medical simulators are increasingly gaining appeal in clinical settings. In obstetrics childbirth simulators provide a training and research tool for comparing various techniques that use obstetrical instruments or validating new methods. Especially in the case of difficult deliveries, the use of obstetrical instruments-such as forceps, spatulas, and vacuum extractors-has become essential.

A new obstetric forceps for the training of junior doctors: a comparison of the spatial dispersion of forceps blade trajectories between junior and senior obstetricians.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to create a new instrument for the training of doctors in the use of forceps and to compare the trajectories of forceps blades between junior and senior obstetricians.

Study Design: We equipped a simulator and forceps with spatial location sensors. The head of the fetus was in an occipitoanterior location, at a "+5" station.

Fetal head position during the second stage of labor: comparison of digital vaginal examination and transabdominal ultrasonographic examination.

Objective: To study the correlation between digital vaginal and transabdominal ultrasonographic examination of the fetal head position during the second stage of labor.

Methods: Patients (n = 110) carrying a singleton fetus in a vertex position were included. Every patient had ruptured membranes and a fully dilated cervix.

Birth simulator: reliability of transvaginal assessment of fetal head station as defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists classification.

Objective: This study was undertaken to investigate the reliability of transvaginal assessment of fetal head station by using a newly designed birth simulator.

Study Design: This prospective study involved 32 residents and 25 attending physicians. Each operator was given all 11 possible fetal stations in random order.

Comparison of "instrument-associated" and "spontaneous" obstetric depressed skull fractures in a cohort of 68 neonates.

Objective: A depressed skull fracture is an inward buckling of the calvarial bones and is referred to as a "ping-pong" fracture. This study aimed to look at differences between "spontaneous" and "instrument-associated" depressed skull fractures.

Study Design: This retrospective, case-control analysis included every neonate who was admitted with a depressed skull fracture between 1990 and 2000.