Midwives, midwives and Auxiliary Nursing Care Technicians (TCAE) from the Miguel Servet University Hospital in Zaragoza have developed a pioneering project in the field of health, called Picto Partos.

The project consists of the elaboration of a series of communication booklets with symbols of ARASAAC to improve communication in the care of women in the area of pregnancy and childbirth, due to the fact that more and more women who do not know the Spanish language are coming to the hospital.

Faced with this situation, the health personnel sought a quick and simple form of communication through pictograms, a universal language that can allow a communication with each patient in abidirectional way to be able to guarantee a comprehensive and integrated care at each moment of pregnancy and childbirth.

To carry out its objective, the collaboration of the Aragonese Portal of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ARASAAC) was requested, since it was chosen to use pictograms as a communication tool, being an alternative method to the understandable and universal oral language.

Over several months of work, the nursing staff of the hospital divided the work into four groups,corresponding to the four areas of care for women: Maternity Emergencies, Dilatation-delivery, Fetal Pathophysiology and Puerperium,establishing in each area the fundamental aspects of communication with patients:

• what midwives should communicate,
• what they need to know about their patients,
• how to find out the accurate data for the medical history,
• how to understand what each woman wants to communicate to them,
• how to indicate the recommendations to follow in each process, etc.

The final result has been six communication booklets corresponding to each of these integral areas, which can be downloaded and printed here:

• Maternity Emergencies
• Dilatation – delivery room
• Delivery room
• Fetal Pathophysiology
• Puerperium
• Diagnostic tests

Undoubtedly, a great project that combines the joint work of the Department of Health and the Department of Education, Culture and Sport of the Government of Aragon to guarantee the right to communication of all people and in all areas.