Abstract
This study aimed to compare fetal head angles during assisted delivery between expert and beginner practitioners using video data recorded with a delivery assistance simulator. Participants included 10 experts and eight beginners, comprising midwifery students and junior midwives. Deliveries were performed under standardized conditions using a simulator and recorded laterally from the delivery bed. Still images were extracted every second from delivery onset until completion. The fetal head angle was defined as the angle between a parallel reference line on the simulator (fixed screw) and the fetal model′s frontal head line. Angles were measured using ImageJ (NIH). A linear mixed-effects modeling approach was applied to time-normalized angle waveforms and revealed no significant group differences in the overall trajectory. In contrast, the Mann-Whitney U test revealed that beginners had significantly greater maximum flexion angles than experts (p = 0.016). These findings indicate that angle-based visualization can capture skill-related differences and may contribute to the development of objective training tools for delivery assistance.
