Virtual reality ‘offers mothers solution to pain of childbirth’

RESEARCHERS claim that using virtual reality headsets can reduce anxiety and pain f or women during childbirth.

In the first phase of a major new trial testing VR in childbirth at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, all of the women involved said the experience left them less anxious, and most (57%) said it reduced their pain.

The study, being presented at this week’s annual conference for the American College of Gynaecology, represents a very different approach to dealing with pain, anxiety, excitement and fear in pregnant women.

The first virtual reality experiences designed to distract from pain started emerging in the last few years, largely to treat acute pain and burns, and using expensive headsets. Now, with the innovation of much cheaper paper headsets, medics of all fields are starting to investigate.

The vision of wards decked out with women wearing headsets may seem sci-fi and a world away from what we think would qualify for a ‘natural’ birthing experience.

But doulas like Ana Paula Merckel, who helped design an ‘experience’ for LA-based company AppliedVR, is all for it as a tool to help women with visualisations. Some obstetricians, like Dr Melissa Wong, testing VR for childbirth at Cedars Sinai, weren’t sold on the idea. But when she was approached about pioneering a study on VR, she was eager to see if there was any merit to it.

Developing VR for pregnancy, though, is a different equation than developing it for other kinds of anxiety-inducing pain.

The standard video sends patients floating in an ocean with manatees, basking in some unrelated music. Dr Wong felt that was incongruous. For women delivering a baby, she said, ‘it’s so critical that the VR relates to the experience of labour’.

AppliedVR uses music combined with meditative words read by an actor, and images of earth, water and fire. Women are taken to a beach with a gently burning campfire, and finally a blooming pink tree, the design for which is based on a print of a placenta. Ms Merckel said: ‘We don’t want them to forget they are about to have a child but to connect with that.’