Fetal head moulding is a phenomenon that happens during the process of human childbirth. Due to the highly deformable fetal scalp being in contact with the maternal anatomy, the shape of the fetal head changes. This can be beneficial when the fetal head dimensions are very similar to the dimensions of the female pelvis hence allowing the baby to progress safely through the birth canal. Conversely, excessive head moulding may have serious effects on the baby's wellbeing. The first part of this thesis presents a computer-based finite element model of fetal head moulding as an improvement on previously developed models. The second part of the research focuses on another cause of potentially excessive fetal head moulding, i.e. the incorrect use of obstetric instruments including the obstetric forceps and the ventouse (vacuum extractor). The degree of damage that may be caused by incorrectly placing a forceps (i.e. asymmetric placement of the blades) or a ventouse (i.e. placement on top of soft parts of the skull such as the fontanelles) was assessed by means of finite element analysis after developing a set of software tools to facilitate these experiments. The fi�nal results of this research included: an improved and more realistic model of fetal head moulding under conditions of normal delivery, and results that reveal the great potential of severe damage that obstetric forceps and/or the ventouse may cause to the baby's head when applied incorrectly.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:716430 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Audinis, Vilius |
| Publisher | University of East Anglia |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/63688/ |
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