Viral Video: Contractions

A loving aunt recently made a quick video for her niece, an aspiring midwife, but it’s gone far beyond its intended audience, it’s gone viral! And it’s not hard to see why! It’s honestly one of the best visual explanations of contractions and labor that we’ve ever seen. And oh so simple.

Liz Chalmers, using just a ping pong ball and a balloon, first demonstrates the difference between Braxton Hicks contractions and labor contractions, and then shows the ‘arrival moment.’

It is utterly addictive viewing – and the perfect tool for understanding what’s happening inside during labor. Chalmers said it was something she was taught in a workshop called ‘Stomp Out Boring Childbirth classes.’ (High five to that, and LOVE the name!).

This simple visualization can go a long way in helping moms-to-be stay calm and focused during delivery – because understanding what their body is doing, and why, can help them feel in control.

Like people often feel about childbirth, it looks seemingly impossible at first to get the ping pong ball out of the balloon….you sit there just waiting for the balloon to pop! But it doesn’t. Slowly, steadily and surely, that little ping pong ball makes it way down the neck of the balloon, which first ‘thins’ out just as a cervix does, and then starts dilating until one last push…. And voila. A ping pong ball is born.

Like Chalmers suggests, it’s not just a great exercise for moms-to-be, it’s also a neat and unintimidating way to show older kids how babies arrive – and just how phenomenal the female body is!

Here’s hoping that Liz makes some more videos after this triumph! What a cool aunt.