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17 women share what it really felt like to give birth, and it's mind-blowing

"My throat was making those deep guttural sounds completely without my involvement. It was so bizarre."

Image via Canva/kieferpix

Women share what it felt like to give birth.

Giving birth is a bewildering experience, and only women who have given birth know *exactly* what it's really like.

Every woman has a unique birth story to share, and no two are like. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were 3,622,673 births in the United States in 2024.

To help others understand what giving birth really feels like, women opened up about their personal birthing experiences—and didn't spare any details. These are 17 real-life birthing stories from women who describe exactly what giving birth feels like.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"It felt like my lower body was on fire." - TKmj2503

"Obviously painful but then it becomes out of body experience i swear. I remember hearing in the distance the midwife comment to the trainee "Ok, we know we are close because the cow sounds are coming now" and in my head I thought 'Who's making cow sounds?' Me....it was me... full breath, deep, cow sounds coming from deep within me for the final pushes 🤣 When you're in that moment, you don't care about the pain. You want it done. Nature is crazy! To all the women who said they were told to be quiet or not make such noises, f*ck them. To any partner looking to be supportive, embrace the raw experience of child birth and join in😅." - Shepford

"My throat was making those deep guttural sounds completely without my involvement. It was so bizarre." - User Unknown

"At first like period cramps, then like over the top period cramps, then I had epidural and felt absolutely nothing till the end." - thelastsurvivorof83

"For me, the contractions were 1 million percent worse than actually pushing the baby out. When you’re pushing it feels like your vagina has been set on fire, but for me anyway, when the midwife told me I was crowning, I knew that the hell and horror of labor was so close to being over so it gave me the motivation to get the baby OUTTA THERE. But the contractions are out of this world painful. And I didn’t have epidural both times as I gave birth at home and had no choice. I didn’t even scream I literally roared like a wild fucking tiger. It’s rough, but weirdly you forget the pain within days of your baby being born." - HolidayWishbone1947

birth, giving birth, birthing gif, birth gif, screaming birth Get Out Birth GIF Giphy

"Its so weird with the epidural. There's no pain but I could feel the intense deep pressure from the inside. Similar to when I overeat and I feel super bloated and need to poop? But like 5x more intense. There was such an immediate sense of emptiness and relief as soon as baby was out though, so bizarre." - ano-ba-yan

"Like bubble gut diarrhea and the most ungodly menstrual cramps mixed with SI joint pain and 10/10 back spasms, then like when you’ve been constipated for three days and you’re grunting so hard to push a poop out but it keeps sliding back in no matter how hard you push. You swear it’s 110 degrees and you’re sweating and thirsty but they’ll only let you eat three ice cubes. Then twelve nurses come rushing into the room and it’s just coming out and you can’t stop it and you know for sure that your lady bits are going to rip open. Then it actually does tear but the giant poop came out so it’s fine. You can rest now. Things get fuzzy as organized chaos erupts and someone is yelling for a surgeon. Then a yucky, grey, wide eyed jelly fish gets plopped on your chest as a rush of delirious emotions floods your brain and you look at it and say it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life with tears in your eyes and you swear there’s a golden light shining down on you while the angels are singing a chorus. Then you realize two surgeons are poking around in your hoo haa and the golden light is a literal giant spotlight shining on your under carriage, your playlist has gone rogue and is playing Istanbul Not Constantinople and your husband is ghostly white and looks like he’s about to fall over. The nurse shouts out the time and date of birth and apparently it’s tomorrow? Two days later you get rolled out of the hospital and say 10/10, would do again." - PantsIsDown

"An enormous downward pressure that feels like it’s in your back door but it’s not. Only really painful toward the end. Things become very primal; you roar and scream to manage the overwhelming sensations but really your body is doing the work. The ring of fire is very real and you know when you are in it! Source: induction without pain meds." - clayfawn

birth, giving birth, childbirth, childbirth gif, birth gif Season 8 Episode 24 GIF by Friends Giphy

"Like taking an extremely painful dump, essentially. There’s a lot of pressure with tightness around your belly that comes and goes but gets closer together. The pressure is so intense, like you’re pushing all your organs out. Then burning pain when they crown, but once baby is fully delivered, immediate relief. Comparatively, delivering the placenta is nbd. It’s a few contractions then and you’re all done and feel like you just ran a marathon or did intense exercise. So much relief." - Minute_Cookie9771

"Like I was being cut with a serrated blade from my rib cage to my vag, and with no cesarean or perineal tears. I imagine it’s what a fish being gutted feels like." - karatekiddo

"Personally I think that contractions feel similarly to bowel cramps. It’s an intense cramping feeling that starts in the internal center of your body - the true trunk of your torso. The pressure is so deep and so hard and so intense that it’s blinding. And at the very peak of the contraction it’s a sharpness, akin to stabbing pain once you are in transition (so, 7-10 cm and effacing to 100% in your cervical status). The pushing itself is a sort of relief because the peaks of pain are blunted, and the reflex if allowed to naturally occur is really sort of nice in comparison. The baby descending into your vaginal canal is a heavy, dull, stretching pressure that is unlike anything I can compare. Sort of bowel-movement adjacent as well? You can feel their little head moving downward. The crowning - a stretch and a pop (if you tear- I did both times) but it’s not all that painful in the moment because of the adrenaline and everything else. I tore to the second degree and truly did not notice enough to care, I just wanted the pressure to stop. Once their head is out, most babies bodies sort of easily slither after. (Shoulder dystocia not withstanding.) And then the cord feels ropey, they set it aside(mine was placed on my belly for one birth lol), and the placenta feels like a huge period clot or jelly sort of just schlooping on out. Not before they 'massage' your stomach to encourage it - the 'fundal massage' sucks and helps the placenta come out. Then you get sewn up if you tore. Then you shake from the hormonal dump. Then you lay there and have a WHOLE lot of feelings." - mildtomoderately

"I had a 9lb, 2oz baby without an epidural. It hurt like hell but your hormones do something wild and your body just takes over. It was an out of body experience. I remember very little of how much it hurt." - Ticklish_Pomegranate

epidural, epidurals, epidural gif, birth, birth gif Max Greenfield Comedy GIF by CBS Giphy

"I was hallucinating in and out of consciousness the pain was so terrible. I was too far gone to get an epidural when I arrived, the gas made me vomit and the nurse told me to push. I remember thinking 'I'd rather be dead than continue to feel this pain'. It was the worse day of my life." - RecognitionMediocre6

"It’s like that monster turd you once did that started progressing and you know it’s so big it’s going to rip your *sshole. It burns, it stretches, it hurts! But you also know that the only way forward is through and you have to push this monster baby out. Like that but x10. Honestly- labor is the painful part, once it’s time to push and you can direct all that pain into something, it’s fantastic." - foxyloxylady

"I honestly don't know how to describe it. I had a non medicated vaginal birth. Contractions are just your whole belly just cramping up, it builds and just when you think you can't take it it goes away. Eventually they got so intense I just groaned through them. Sometimes making what my husband described as demon noises. I labored in the shower and the water + heat really does help. Then when pushing on the bed it gets really tiring but you do get motivated to be done and just meet your baby. The only time I had a oh shit moment was when she was crowning and I had the searing pain of the ring of fire. I took a minute, rallied and pushed through it. Honestly getting my cervix checked was worse than any contractions or pushing. Then when they push on your belly after, that's pretty awful." - TheSadSalsa

birth, after birth, baby gif, birth gif, giving birth Season 1 Baby GIF by Outlander Giphy

"Open your mouth as wide as it will go and use two fingers to hook & pull it even wider from the side and that is what it feels like down below as the head is coming out. The contractions are probably the most powerful period pains that you have ever had and the overwhelming urge to push is just like when you cannot stop yourself vomiting, its coming out whether you like it or not. Saying that, its worth it and when you look at your baby, the overwhelming rush of love makes that pain forgettable immediately." - jlelvidge

"Ok I was lucky, I had three natural births each with no epidural or any gas and air. I wasn't against it, I was lucky enough to manage without. And that's the point - birth is very much about how lucky you get on the day with your baby, your body, the right medical team and much more. Contractions hurt a lot but honestly I suffered a large burn on my midsection years before birth and that was out of my mind type of pain that nothing eased. Contractions were bad, but never felt as painful as that massive burn. You feel a pressure build up as you need to push, and the pushing feels like a relief. It's kind of impressive how the animalistic part of your body takes over and you have to go along for the ride. My whole body was getting involved when I had to push, you feel it in your very soul. 10/10, would do it again, it hurts but for me it was okay and never reached my benchmark pain of that burn. And also you will poop yourself but not care." - stuckwitharmor

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My open letter to pregnant women everywhere.

Many women experience infertility, a premature birth, or infant loss, but we don’t talk about it much.

Pregnancy is no walk in the park, and I know this all too well.

With a tiny human slowly growing inside of you for more than nine months, you are bound to be uncomfortable. But, while pregnancy challenges both your mind and body, I have a request: I want to ask expectant mothers to embrace the bump.

Let me explain: I’m a statistic, one of the millions of women out there who didn’t experience the perfect pregnancy and would give anything to reach full term with a child.

I guess you can say I’m the trifecta of mishaps. I spent years dreaming of having a child, only to face infertility. After my husband and I found out we were expecting triplets, a series of medical setbacks caused me to go into labor at 22 weeks. And while we have one beautiful survivor now, two of my triplets eventually passed away because of their extreme prematurity. That’s why my heart sinks when I see expectant mothers publicly post about how "over it" they are when it comes to their third trimester.

I remember spending several weeks on bed rest in the hospital, constantly praying for my triplets to sit tight for just a few more weeks.

Even a few days could have made a difference. By 20 weeks gestation, I was almost the size of a full-term pregnancy and I could barely turn from one side of the bed to the other.

All photos here by Stacey Skrysak, used with permission.

I had three babies using my bladder as a boxing bag, yet I was only allowed to get up a few times a day due to my health. On the day I went into labor, it felt like I had been punched in the gut. The pain from contractions was tough, and the attempts to stop the labor were even more difficult.

But, even worse than all of that pain combined was the emotional, unbearable pain of knowing that my children would most likely die. In that instant, as the doctor told me I had to deliver, I wanted to go back in time. I longed to feel my babies kick and remember the carefree days when my pregnancy was easy.

Many women experience infertility, a premature birth, or infant loss, but we don’t talk about it much.

For those women, like me, pregnancy can be a painful memory. I was robbed of my pregnancy and never got that magical delivery room experience; there was no picture-perfect moment of me happily holding my children.

Instead, I delivered my first triplet and held her in my arms as she passed away shortly after birth. The chaos, fear, and heartache is what I remember, not the beauty of bringing a new child into the world.

So here’s what I want you to know: I’m not asking you to stop complaining.

I'm not asking you to censor your experience either or to walk on eggshells when you feel the physically and emotionally draining side effects of pregnancy. Pregnancy is hard. And even three years later, I still make fun of my squishy belly, a post-pregnancy problem that I’m stuck with for good, much like those pesky chin hairs that forgot to go away after my children were born.

Instead, I’m simply passing along an observation from someone who’s had another kind of experience, and I’d like to encourage you to be empathetic to moms like me. As you stare at your swollen feet and clench your chest with heartburn, please think of your friends and social media acquaintances who might be silently struggling.

Until I shared my journey of infertility, I didn’t realize how many women also secretly struggled with it. I had no idea how many families experienced life in the NICU until I was in the midst of that journey. I think you’d be surprised at how many people you know are praying for the chance to someday have a healthy child.

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Heroes

The new Zika vaccine could be a big win for pregnant women (and everyone else too).

The Zika virus is kind of scary.

The disease hides in mosquitoes and can be spread by a bite. And for most people, Zika's symptoms are pretty mild — a little joint pain and maybe a fever.

But for some folks, the symptoms might be more severe. Some victims may develop the potentially fatal Guillain-Barré syndrome. And most perniciously, if a pregnant woman is infected, the virus can cause a serious birth defect known as microcephaly in her unborn child.

A Brazilian doctor holds a baby born with microcephaly. Photo from Mario Tama/Getty Images.

Althought the disease has been around since the 1940s, it's been gaining attention lately after being newly introduced in South America.

The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency in February 2016 because of Zika's quick spread.


A Honduran health worker fumigates a classroom against mosquitoes. Photo from Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images.

And the pope even suggested contraceptives could be used to slow its spread — a big gesture from the leader of the Catholic Church.

But we just had a major breakthrough in fighting off this disease: a vaccine.

Photo from Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images.

On June 20, 2016, Inovio Pharmaceuticals and GeneOne Life Science announced that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have given them permission to test an experimental vaccine on human subjects.

This would be the first Zika virus vaccine.

This is just the first step in fighting Zika, but it's an exciting one.

The companies will start the process by giving the vaccine to a small group of 40 people to see if the drug is safe and tolerable for patients to take. This test will also be their first chance to see how effective it is for humans. (Previous animal studies showed promise, but that doesn't always translate to humans.)

Granted, there's still a ways to go. Depending on the test results, it could be a few years before we see widespread use of a vaccine like this.

And if this vaccine works, it could help a lot of people.

A Honduran woman waits at a health clinic. Photo from Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images.

As of June 2016, Zika is live and spreading in more than 60 countries, and the World Health Organization estimates that Zika could infect as many as 4 million people in North and South America by the end of 2016.

It's not being transmitted in the continental United States (although there have been about 750 travel-related infections reported), but it has been found in Puerto Rico.

On Feb. 22, 2016, President Obama requested $1.9 billion in emergency spending to help combat the virus. And Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican from Florida, recently announced his support of the request.

"People's lives are at stake," said Buchanan, "the time for inaction is over."

The Zika virus is kind of scary. But thanks to research like this, we may be able to beat it in the next few years.

That will be an incredible win.

Heroes

Not on birth control? The CDC wants you to stop drinking. Here's what I think.

Concerned about the number of babies born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, the Centers for Disease Control has made quite the recommendation.

Health officials at the government agency on Feb. 2, 2016, suggested that all women of child-bearing age who are sexually active and not using birth control should ... wait for it ... avoid drinking alcohol altogether.

No birth control, no more Wine Wednesdays for you, says the CDC. Photo by iStock.

The CDC provided a handy infographic for health care providers, wherein they suggest that "[p]roviders can help women avoid drinking too much, including avoiding alcohol during pregnancy, in 5 steps."

Seems legit. But then step #3 is a little disconcerting (emphasis added):

"Advise a woman to stop drinking if she is trying to get pregnant or not using birth control with sex."

Hmmmm.

Yep, you read that correctly. If you're a woman who's having sex, who's capable of reproducing, and who's not using contraception, the CDC suggests your health care provider advise you to quit drinking alcohol completely.

At first, I thought maybe they just weren't being very clear. Maybe they were talking about women who are trying to become pregnant AND not using contraception. But, alas, no.

“Alcohol can permanently harm a developing baby before a woman knows she is pregnant,” principal deputy director of the CDC Anne Schuchat said, according to USA Today. “About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won’t know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking."

She continued, "The risk is real. Why take the chance?”

Let's break this down.

Late in 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics took the definitive stance that absolutely no amount of alcohol during pregnancy is safe for a developing fetus.

For years, there's been a lot of debate about how much, if any, alcohol an expectant mother can consume before she should worry that her baby could be born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).

The CDC says FASD affects up to 1 in 20 U.S. schoolchildren and can result in many physical issues, such as: "low birth weight and growth; problems with heart, kidneys, and other organs; and damage to parts of the brain." Those problems can cause behavioral and intellectual disabilities, which in turn can cause problems with "school and social skills; living independently; mental health; substance use; keeping a job; and trouble with the law."

Photo by iStock.

FASD is a serious condition, no question.

While some are still skeptical that even small amounts of alcohol are dangerous, the AAP published a clinical report in the November issue of Pediatrics, and the abstract contained the group's clear-cut stance:

"During pregnancy:
— no amount of alcohol intake should be considered safe;
— there is no safe trimester to drink alcohol;
— all forms of alcohol, such as beer, wine, and liquor, pose similar risk; and
— binge drinking poses dose-related risk to the developing fetus."




According to the CDC, planned pregnancies apparently make up half of all pregnancies each year in the U.S. So based on that info from the AAP, the CDC's recommendation that women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant abstain from alcohol is logical. They included women trying to become pregnant because, according to health officials, even planned pregnancies often remain unknown until a woman is four to six weeks along.

But the way the CDC wants to address potential FASD in the other half of pregnancies — the unintended ones —is where things veer off course.

To be fair, step #2 on the info graphic for health care providers instructs them to:

"Recommend birth control if a woman is having sex (if appropriate), not planning to get pregnant, and is drinking alcohol."

But for health officials to jump from that to step #3, which is essentially saying "no more alcohol for you, the end!" is a just a tiiiiiiny bit paternalistic.


No, CDC. No. GIF via "The Matrix."

And it's problematic.

First, it's still difficult for some women to access birth control. What if instead of telling women to use birth control or give up alcohol forever — or at least until menopause — the government made absolutely certain that all women have easy, free access to birth control?

Second, why are we not more concerned with the fact that half of women who become pregnant each year do so unintentionally? That seems like the actual problem that needs addressing, not that women are going around being adults and having a glass of wine or a few cocktails in the course of, you know, living their lives.

Third, where's the recommendation and handy infographic for men about their contribution to unintended pregnancies (and potential FASD in the babies that result from those unintended pregnancies)? After all, if men were using condoms correctly 100% of the time they engaged in sex, that should reduce the number of unintended pregnancies drastically, thereby reducing the instances of FASD. Women who are not using birth control while consuming alcohol would be far more unlikely to become pregnant in the first place if their partners were using condoms.

I'd venture to guess that most people care about healthy babies.

But in the course of trying to protect potential future babies that don't yet exist, the CDC missed an opportunity to address the real problems: Women need easy, affordable (or free) access to birth control, men need to take responsibility to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and, again, why don't we care more about the number of unintended pregnancies that occur each year in the first place? The bottom line: Telling adult women they shouldn't drink alcohol isn't a solution to any of these problems.

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