Viral ‘birth’ video using balloon praised for its realistic portrayal of labour

It's been hailed as 'the most accurate depiction of birth' ever

YouTube (Liz Chalmers)

The owner of a Seattle-based birthing centre has filmed a labour tutorial for prospective parents.

Using just a balloon and a ping pong ball, Liz Chalmers re-enacts childbirth in a clip made for her niece who is studying to be a birthing instructor in New Zealand.

The short video has gone viral on Facebook after it was praised for being an incredibly accurate depiction of giving birth, despite featuring little more than a few homemade props.

US parenting website Cafe Mom hailed the clip for being "the most accurate depiction of birth" they'd ever seen.

Chalmers begins by placing a ping pong ball inside a deflated pink balloon before blowing it up to its full size with the ball falling to the bottom, subsequently blocking the air hole.

Next, she gently squeezes the balloon, explaining that this is to simulate contractions.

"If you just squeeze the sides of balloon like this, not much is happening here to the neck of the balloon, and it's not opening very much,” she says.

Her movements clearly demonstrate that the contractions do little to help open the cervix as no air is let out of the balloon and it retains its full size.

She adds that “real contractions” take place higher up the uterus as that’s where they get their power from thanks to fluctuating muscle fibres which pull on the uterus walls.

Chalmers continue to mimic these contractions by squeezing the top of the balloon repeatedly until the ping pong ball eventually pops out, simulating the birth of a new born baby.

After posting the video to Facebook, the video went viral with more than 2.4m views, 24,000 shares and 10,000 likes and she has since posted a version to YouTube.

The reaction to the clip, which looks like it has been filmed on a smartphone, took Chalmers by surprise:

“This little video has gone much further than I ever expected,” she wrote on Facebook.

She explained that she was inspired to represent labour in this unique way thanks to a birthing workshop she attended, named Stomp Out Boring Childbirth Classes.

Her approach clearly resonated with expecting parents everywhere - and it wasn’t boring in the slightest.