Childbirth simulator turns Sean Fletcher into a cry baby

'Unreal pain' ... the machine does its work

Popular TV host and presenter of Good Morning Britain, Sean Fletcher has been brave enough to get hooked up to a machine that simulates the pain of labour.


After passing through the 1hr painful experience, Sean will tell you that getting kicked in the groin is far different from pushing a 9lb baby into the world.

While speaking exclusively to S2, Sean, 41, admits: “I have been kicked in the privates before and it’s really horrible.

“But this is 100 times worse, it can’t even be compared. The level of pain is so unreal.

“It’s like another dimension I had never been to before.

“You would have to pay me £100,000 to go through that again.”

'Waiting for it to start was really scary'

After watching his wife, Luned, give birth twice, Sean knew the experience was far from pleasant, but had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

Physiotherapist Kim Vanwijk wired Sean up to the Physicare International BV machine.

Releasing low levels of electrotherapy, often used to help sports injuries, the machine tenses the muscles. When turned to a high intensity, the muscle spasms emulate the feeling of labour.

Or “torture”, as Sean will describe it.

“I honestly felt like someone was trying to get state secrets out of me", Sean says.

“Waiting for it all to start was really scary. Once I had the first one I roughly knew what to expect but, just like real labour, you have no idea when the next one is coming and how long for.

“The first one hurt but that was nothing when compared to the rest of the contractions.”

Unlike most labours, Sean had a short experience of the painful process, which lasted an hour.

He says: “Kim gave me three bursts of different pain, just like labour. To start with it felt like a million different little people were kicking my stomach really hard.

“Then it feels like they are stabbing you, then finally it feels like your stomach is being ripped out of you.

Sean begged for an epidural

“It was obviously much better for me as I didn’t have to give birth to a baby and knew it was over in an hour.

“It’s lucky women are the ones who give birth.”

“But it was not just the pain that was similar — Sean’s reaction was far from manly.

Bizarrely, he started to lay down and put his legs up and created a wall of pillows. If the pain had continued Sean admits he would have been on all fours, howling.

Sean says: “You hear women almost singing and screaming at the same time when they are having contractions.

“I didn’t shout like a bloke, I got really high pitched. It was very weird and each time I told myself to stop doing that but I couldn’t. The first word that came into my head was epidural. I just started asking for an epidural. It was bizarre the way I reacted.”

Watching with great amusement, Luned felt no sympathy for her suffering husband.

Mum to Lili, 17 and Reuben, 12, Luned says: “I found the whole thing hilarious. It’s like a woman’s perfect revenge, men finally experiencing what so many of us have to do.

“I really went along with it as well, telling him it was like being stabbed in the stomach and that you feel like you were going to die.

I never want to through that again . . . Sean

“He went very peaky before we started and he kept eating cereal bars, like he was about to go on a big hike.

“It was funny to see him being reduced to a bumbling wreck from a tough man. He even grabbed my thigh, like a classic woman in labour and squeezed really hard.

“Hilariously he thinks he has experienced child birth now.”

Sean adds: “I’ve still got the mental scars.

“If I had to do that again, I would ask my wife to do it.”

Source: The Sun

Credits: Chike Emeghara,