Men Can Experience the Contractions of Labor with the Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulator

I was listening to the radio on the way to drop off this morning and the DJ’s on the Bert Show were talking about two Dutch TV hosts, Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno who decided to undergo electro-stimulations (they simulate contractions) for their show, “Guinea Pigs.” using a neuromuscular electrical stimulator. That piqued my interest but then they went on to say that they were going to do the same; live streaming on Ustream from their studio, I did what any woman who has experienced transition labor without a damn epidural would do, I raced home to watch. Men can experience the contractions of labor.

Even though it wasn’t as intense as real child labor, I think they got the picture. Growing little people and giving birth is not for the faint of heart. When will men realize that women, even though we are referred to as the weaker sex and may be smaller than men, we are built tough? We make hard decisions because we have to. We sacrifice our lives and ourselves, not because it’s easier for us but because we know it has to be done. We choose to do the right thing not because it’s easy but in spite of how hard it is; like giving birth.

READ ALSO: What giving Birth Feels Like

Men usually have more physical strength than women but we have a mind over matter mentality that is unparalleled. We have a way of seeing our way through to the other side. We have a quiet inner peace that gives us the strength to carry on when most others would quit.

I watched the video and it was funny to see how they reacted to the simulated contractions. But going through an entire 5 minutes of childbirth can never prepare anyone for what giving birth is really like.

READ ALSO: The Day I became a Mother

Giving birth is a full-body experience. It is physical, mental and spiritual. When I gave birth, I was in so much pain that it was all I could do to stay focused on the task at hand. About 5 hours into it, I wanted, with all that I was, to quit the whole thing. The pain was immeasurable. I didn’t have the benefit of my labor originating from a mechanism that I could control. There was no on/off switch and there was certainly no guaranteed 20 second rest period in between contractions and there was no promise that the pain of the contraction would only last 15 seconds. During the transition labor of my first birth, my contractions were so closely staggered that they felt constant.

I, honestly, thought I was going to die. There was no laughing. There was only quiet prayers for the pain to stop by any means possible. Either the baby needed to come out so the pain would stop or I was going to throw myself out of a window. I couldn’t have taken it much longer than I did. After the first one, I was not sure that I would ever have another baby. I was afraid. I was terrified. But I did.

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This neuromuscular electrical stimulator is great to perhaps give men a glimpse into what labor contractions feel like but they can not replicate the state of mind that women experience when giving birth. It is a simultaneous end and beginning. The end of who we were and the birth of who we will become. The birth of our own child. There is nothing like the experience in the world and no two experiences are alike, even in the same woman.

Birth is messy. It is an out of body experience. It transcends space and time and in the end, you know that you did something completely amazing. You brought a miracle to life. You witnessed it’s creation and now you have the privilege of loving that child and raising it to be the change you want to see in the world. It is life-changing. It’s so much deeper than just learning the boundaries of your pain threshold, which is what the neuromuscular electrical stimulator has reduced the experience to.

Would you want your husband to experience the Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulator while you were in labor?