Avatars and genuine interaction

Text Tiina Aulanko-Jokirinne

Translation Tiina Leivo, Sedeer el-Showk

Illustration Juuli Miettilä

Nearly all expecting couples and families with small children use maternity and child health clinic services in Finland. The social and healthcare services reform at the turn of the year reassigned the responsibility for organising these services from municipalities to newly founded wellbeing services counties, and the services will undergo reorganisation.

Aalto University’s researchers are helping redesign maternity and child health clinics and positive childbirth experiences. The goal is to take advantage of the opportunities new technologies provide, such as simulating childbirth in a 3-D video conference using an avatar, or a virtual character. The researchers would also like to hold on to best practices from the past, such as the traditional child health clinic card, genuine human interaction and the rotina tradition, visits by family and close friends to meet the newborn and bring foods as a gift.

Heydays and hospitality Maternity and child health clinics started operating in Finland as early as 1922 disseminating information that was previously passed on by the wise older women of the family. Added motivation for launching the activities was concern over child and maternal mortality. The clinics led to clear improvements, and mortality rates are now among the lowest in the world.

In Finland, 1–7 maternal deaths occur annually. The infant mortality rate was 1.8 out of a thousand children born alive in 2020. The deaths of 1–14-year-olds have also become increasingly rare. In 2020, 58 children died in Finland, marking the lowest number in recorded history.

Doctoral student in computer science, doula entrepreneur and childbirth educator Marjaana Siivola says that maternity and child health clinics experienced a kind of heyday at the turn of the millennium.

‘The clinics offered face-to-face encounters, presence, familiar nurses and birth preparation classes that were based on peer support.’

After the high point, both clinic and childbirth services started to be centralised. Nowadays, the number of public health nurses and physicians at the clinics often falls short of the recommendations.

If there was still doubt before the COVID-19 pandemic that birth preparation classes could be arranged online, the mindset has now changed. A webinar arranged during the COVID period could attract up to a thousand participants.

Marjaana Siivola and Professor of New Media Design and Learning

Teemu Leinonen, together with their colleagues, have studied birth preparation classes arranged as so-called flipped classrooms.

‘The participants are welcome to explore the materials independently. They can watch videos online, read, take a tour in the delivery room, section room and family room through virtual 360° images, play a childbirth game or