The mattresses are designed by the Linet Group, a German-based manufacturer focused on designing advanced care beds. The aim is to shorten labor times, reduce cesarean sections and promote pain management and relaxation.
The company asked Mercy Springfield to be the first beta test site in the U.S. The Vibwife mattress is already being used in other parts of the world.
Brittany Shaar, nurse manager of Labor and Delivery and the Family Resource Center at Mercy, said they are already using Linet bed frames. This mattress, she said, is softer than what they had, but it also offers a patented birth mobility system, "so, it actually has mechanisms inside the mattress that can provide these oscillating movements during patients’ labor.”
Patients are given a remote, she said, and there’s a poster that shows different movements they can try. Nurses help them use the mattresses during labor as well.
They’ve teamed up with Spinning Babies during the trial phase, according to Shaar.
“It’s an educational class just based on mothers’ movements and how to really aid in that physiologic birth and helping babies rotate in the right way during labor to ease that whole birthing process," she said.
Spinning Babies teaches that using patient positioning and movement to encourage fetal rotation can help ease vaginal deliveries and reduce the need for c-sections.
Once they’re done with the test phase, Shaar said, they’ll determine if they want to purchase the mattresses for use long term.
