PROVO — Neonatal critical-care experts at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center soon will be able to practice newborn resuscitation using an almost-baby — a technologically advanced simulator that cries, turns blue and kicks or goes limp just like an infant in distress.

The interactive baby-girl manikin, created by Laerdal with the American Academy of Pediatrics, is called SimNewB. And she's different from most training manikins, because she responds to what's happening to her. If her airway's blocked, her heart rate goes down. When it's cleared, she begins to recover.

The hospital doesn't yet have its simulator, purchased with proceeds from the Chocolate Extravaganza Benefit Gala, but media were invited to a sneak preview with some staffers Thursday.

Hospital spokeswoman Janet Frank said the neonatal intensive-care unit has about 160 employees, and at least half of them will be trained initially, starting with the neonatal registered nurses and nurse practitioners. Later, training will expand to include others who provide direct patient care.

Dr. Ronald Stoddard, the unit's medical director and a long-time participant in the academy's Neonatal Resuscitation Program, hailed the simulator for its ability to provide realistic training that captures the urgency of resuscitating a newborn. To this point, they've talked their way through scenarios to train.

Frank said about 650 of the 5,000 babies delivered at the hospital each year require some form of resuscitation. The number is higher than the 10 percent national average, but the hospital provides tertiary care, so the sickest, highest-risk babies are cared for there.

The simulator looks like a full-term, 50th percentile newborn girl. She's 21 inches long and weighs 7 pounds and, depending on how she's feeling, she might be limp and slightly blue, or active and healthy pink. She also breathes and chokes and accommodates medical tools like positive-pressure airway devices, tubes and intravenous lines — even use of needle decompression to deal with a pneumothorax.

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