Men have little, if any, comprehension of the pain of childbirth. That all changed in Nanjing, China, on 28 March, as three brave representatives of the male gender underwent, somewhat unsubtly, a kind of electroconvulsive therapy to learn of the pain women endure during labour.
The last week of March is “Annual Anesthesia Week” in China (and to think that this story was initially scheduled for April Fool’s Day over the weekend). As such, Nanjing Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital, the city’s main maternity facility off Shigu Lu in Xinjiekou, saw fit to carry out the ironically named “Analgesic Childbirth Education” activity.
At the hospital, the three male participants were seated side by side, whereupon patches capable of applying an electric current were affixed to their abdomens. The patches were then connected to a “labour pain simulator” device, something more akin to a mobile generator.
As the current applied was increased, the men began to sweat, while their faces reddened. The power was turned up further; one loudly cried, “Stop! I can’t stand it”.
The men had endured 5 minutes undergoing the labour pain simulator’s “treatment”. Medical onlookers were heard to have commented that women frequently endure such pain for 8 to 12 hours, while giving birth.
According to Shen Xiaofen, Director of the hospital’s Maternal and Child Anaesthesia Department, “[Pain can] cause us to produce an emergency substance that will make the whole body’s blood vessels shrink. The blood vessels of our placenta will also shrink, having an impact on the blood supply to the foetus, meaning an embolism is entirely possible”.
Speaking with the Nanjing Broadcasting Network, the doctor also went on to caution, “Do not underestimate the pain”. In September of last year, a pregnant woman in Yulin city, Shaanxi province, bordering Inner Mongolia, could not stand the pain of giving birth to the extent she jumped from the building, committing suicide.
Many then might not wonder at a report by the World Health Organisation, back in 2010, which stated China’s Cesarean rate went from approximately 5 percent in 1993/1994 to almost 50 percent in 2007-2008, and which would have put the Middle Kingdom in the global lead for the highest percentage of births by operation. However, the report was last year rubbished in a new study by Dr. Jan Blustein, Professor of Health Policy and Population Health at New York University. The study found that the Chinese cesarean rate is substantially lower than that the WHO had reported; 34.9 percent in 2014, a number that is, in fact, comparable to the United States rate for the same year.
