We are often asked “What is the difference between the Sophie and Sophie’s Mum Full-Birth Simulator and the Lucy and Lucy’s Mum Instrumental Delivery Birth Simulator?”

The main difference is in the pelvic floor. Sophie’s Mum was designed so that a person would be able to push Sophie through the birth canal. To do this we had to leave the pelvic floor fairly low and make the inside of the vagina open enough to allow an average person to push Sophie around the Curve of Carras and out of the vagina. To make this part of the model any more constricted would have made it almost impossible to use.

However, in the case of Lucy’s Mum, we needed to lift the pelvic floor to more accurately simulate the situation when doing an instrumental delivery, particularly a vacuum delivery. If a clinician were to try to place the vacuum cup on the fetus’ head in the Sophie’s Mum Simulator it would tend to fall off. But by lifting the pelvic floor in the Lucy’s Mum Simulator the clinician can place the vacuum cup on the fetus’ head and the pelvic floor will hold it in place, more accurately reflecting real-life situations.

It is possible to do a forceps delivery on Sophie with the Sophie’s Mum Simulator, but it is not possible to do a vacuum delivery on Sophie as the vacuum cup will damage the underlying structure of the model fetus’ head. This is why there is a separate head for vacuum delivery, and why there is a separate “mother” model with a higher pelvic floor.