It’s been done before, a woman preparing for labor who convinces her husband to hook himself up to a labor simulator so that he could somewhat relate to the pain she is about to go through.
But how accurate is the simulator to the actual pain of labor? Well, new mom, Shawn Johnson East decided to compare the two and share her thoughts on YouTube.
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Nearly four months ago, as Mamas Uncut previously reports, Johnson and her husband Andrew East became parents for the first time after welcoming a baby girl into the world on October 29, 2019. They named their baby girl Drew Hazel East, after Andrew.
As Johnson explained, although she wanted to have an entirely natural labor, the mom of 1 ultimately had an emergency c-section after enduring 22 hours of labor, 14 of them unmedicated.
Shawn Johnson East Wears Labor Simulator, Says It’s Nothing Like Actual Labor
And while Johnson admitted she has nothing to prove, she agreed to her husband’s challenge to see which one of them could handle the simulator better. It’s no surprise that Johnson, who has endured the pains of actual labor, handled the simulator 10 times better than Andrew. (You can watch the full video below.)
While keeping the simulator at a level five because Johnson is still recovering from her c-section, the new mom remained even-keeled and was able to hold a conversation the entire time. Unlike Andrew who screamed the entire time and couldn’t hold a conversation while the simulator was attached to him.
And while Johnson admitted that the simulator did hurt, it was nothing like actual labor. As she explained it, the simulator gives off a superficial pain, while she described labor pains as some of the worst cramps of her life.
“It’s not even close,” Johnson said while wearing the simulator. “It just stings. Yes, and I could go higher. It’s like needle stinging. […] It’s not even close and it actually kind of bums me out.” She added that all in all the simulator hurt about five percent as much as actual labor did.
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In the end, Johnson joked that her husband should have to wear the simulator at a level five for 14 hours to truly understand what she went through to birth their little Drew.
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