What Happens When You Give Birth

Everyone knows that having a baby is painful, but how much do you really know about the step-by-step process of what happens in someone's body when they give birth? Well, prepare to be enlightened with this detailed animated video of exactly what happens during the birth of a baby. Though warning: even though it isn't graphic, it looks just as incredibly painful as you imagine it to.

As someone who's never been pregnant, the prospect of giving birth seems vaguely impossible. I think about my body and its proportions, then think about a baby and its proportions, and then usually conclude that there is just no way that this whole thing could possibly work. It's just physics — you can't fit something into a space where there isn't room. And yet somehow women have been having babies since the beginning of human history — in fact, that's why we even have human history to begin with. I know it's a cliche to say the female body is amazing, but think about it. They're pretty amazing.

And in case you want further proof of that, this video should just about do it. It was posted by the Facebook page Pregnancy Videos, and it shows exactly what happens during birth, at least if there aren't any complications. Here's the basic way things happen.

The Baby Is Ready To Be Born

The Cervix Begins To Dilate

The cervix being that small gap just in front of the baby's head that normally isn't a gap at all.

The Cervix Reaches 10cm (4 Inches) Of Dilation

Painful.

The Baby Begins To Move Down The Birth Canal

And Literally None Of This Looks Anything But Terribly Painful

You can watch the whole video below. It is brief but it will stick with you.

Image: Wikipedia Commons