Dad takes on the labour pain challenge
"It feels like someone is trying to push something through my stomach and out of my butt hole" Sound familiar?
If there's one thing about becoming a mum that we're sure men will never be able to understand, it's the pain of labour. But one dad decided to give it a go with a labour simulator as a gift to his wife for Mother's Day in America.
Penn Holderness, 40, let his mummy blogger wife Kim, 39, hook him up to the labour simulator in their doctor's surgery. The contraption – that Kim bought online – simulates the uterus contracting by instead forcing the rectus muscles to contract. Lovely!
"I just think to really embrace fatherhood, you should experience what it took to become a mother," the mum-of-2 says in the video they shared on YouTube.
To make the experience as realistic as possible, Kim makes Penn don a hospital gown and lay on an examination table with his feet in stirrups. "They really have to get in there," she explains as she shines a bright light on his "junk".
The doctor attaches the device and turns it onto a low level so Penn can experience early labour pain. But soon the doctor cranks it up.
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"It feels like someone is trying to push something through my stomach and out of my butt hole," he says. Meanwhile, Kim offers him water and encouragement – but he asks her to get out of his face.
By the time he reaches 'active labour' he's screaming with pain and punching the headrest behind him with his fist. "How long does that happen?" he asks.
"Just like for 10 hours," she replies.
Once the labour simulation is finished, Penn reflects on his rather short labour. "I felt mad at you the whole time and you weren't doing anything but trying to support me, but you didn't understand what was going on right now," he said.
Do you think men can ever really understand what it feels like? Even with a simulator? Let us know in the comments below.
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