Baby simulators offer perspective to Child Development students
Posted Jan. 18, 2023
News Editor
Baby simulators are giving Child Development students perspective on how challenging it can be to take care of an infant.
The RealCare Baby, which are widely used in schools by the brand RealityWorks, has been around for at least the past 25 years, and its current version is the RealCare Baby 3 infant simulator, which can detect care events, mishandling, time spent in their carseat, and clothing changes. Simulator babies have been used in schools around the U.S. for decades. Each simulated infant can cost up to a $1,000. They have been used by educators in Health, Sex Education, and Early Childhood Education classes.
“It's as close to real life as a simulation can get, [a baby] needing to be fed, burped, rocked, and changed," Child Development teacher Valoree Hill said. "Just like real babies, it doesn't care what our students have going on in their personal lives that weekend, when they need care, they need care. It is eye opening for students to see how it impacts their lives and how much rearranging they have to do to make that baby fit into their life, even for just one weekend.”
Their main purpose is to teach students around the world how difficult it can be taking care of an infant and possibly try to prevent teenage pregnancy. It has proven to actually be having the opposite effect. Although it might seem like teaching students the difficulties of taking care of a baby and how demanding and stressful it can be, it also helps them appreciate efforts made by parents and gives them a general understanding of how hard it can be to raise a kid.
Studies show, however, that the lesson does not necessarily prevent teen pregnancies. A 2016 article published by The Lancet cites a study in 2003 and 2006 that showed that girls who had taken simulator babies home had at least one child later in their lives, compared to the 4% who did not and did not take a simulator baby home and who took normal health classes.
All of this goes along with abortion rates which shows 9% of girls who took care of a simulator baby had at least one abortion, in comparison to the group without the baby, which consisted of only 6% of abortions.
“I think this is an eye opening experience for students," Hill said. "They realize that baby's require a lot of care and that your schedule is no longer your own. I've had many, many students come back and tell me, unsolicited, that they are never having children after that weekend. While I don't believe that to be true, I do think it opens their eyes to the fact that they are not ready to take on that responsibility full time and hopefully they will make good choices that delay pregnancy until when (and if) they are ready for it.”
The current teen birth rate in Oregon is 10.1 births per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19. This percentage shows that it has declined 80% since 1997, which is attributed to the increase in youth-friendly clinical services and easy to access and comprehensive sex education programs.