JINAN China A hospital in eastern China is offering fathers-to-be a chance to experience the pain of childbirth after several new moms complained they got little sympathy from their partners. 
 
 Free sessions are held twice a week at Aima maternity hospital in Shandong province and about 100 men have signed up to be tortured. Most are expectant dads but there are thrill seekers too among the volunteers for "taster sessions". 
 
 For the simulations, pads attached to a device are placed above the abdomen, giving electric shocks that induce pain. The test subjects writhe in agony for up to five minutes as a nurse gradually raises the intensity on a scale of one to ten. 
 
 Song Siling, who is trying for a baby with his girlfriend, shut his eyes and grimaced as the needle on the electrode monitor inched forward with a beep. 
 
 "It felt like my heart and lungs were being ripped apart," said Song, who made it to level seven before frantically waving to the nurse to turn off the system. Others dropped out within minutes when they couldn't take the pain. 
 
 Despite their obvious discomfort, the on-duty nurse said the simulations could never match the torment of actual childbirth. 
 
 "Still, if men can experience this pain, then they'll be more loving and caring to their wives," said Lou Dezhu. 
 
 Wu Jianlong, who braved the pain right up to level 10, says the experience radically altered his views on childbirth. 
 
 "Because all women have children and it usually takes quite a long time, I had thought of it as being something really natural, something really normal that they can get through," he said. 
 
 Wu, whose wife is three months pregnant, yelled in pain and clenched his fists before giving in and begging the nurse to stop - he had reached the maximum limit by then. 
 
 Unlike in the West, Chinese men are often not in the room when their partners or wives give birth. Some state-run hospitals do not allow expectant dads to enter, even if they want to. 
 
 (Writing by Tony Tharakan; Editing by Nick Macfie) 

 Soon-to-be dads in one Chinese province can now sign up for a new kind of childbirth preparation: free sessions in which they are literally shocked into understanding what their partners are about go through. 
 
 In each session at Hangzhou Aima maternity hospital in China’s Shandong province, a nurse sends an electric current to a pad placed above the man’s abdomen. Over the course of five minutes, the strength of the current is gradually increased, causing the men to “writhe in agony,” according to a British TV report. The pain the men experience might not match what women endure, sometimes for hours, during childbirth, but it at least offers a taste. 
 
 Reuters reports that while the majority of the men signing up are indeed expectant fathers, a few of them are just thrill-seekers looking for a shot of adrenaline. But even this odd, audacious bunch might be in over their heads. One man described the pain as feeling like his “heart and lungs were being ripped apart.” 
 
 It’s a progressive move for the hospital to take, as men in China are typically not a part of the birthing process. Some hospitals don’t even allow them in the room while their partners are giving birth. 
 
 For mothers, the video below may offer a bit of schadenfreude.
– A hospital in China is giving men a unique way to share the experience of childbirth—specifically, the pain of childbirth—with women. Reuters reports that Aima maternity hospital offers sessions in which guys can have pads attached to their abdomen that deliver electric shocks in gradually increasing intensity over five minutes. In other words, the men sign up to get "tortured," writes Natalie Thomas. "The pain the men experience might not match what women endure, sometimes for hours, during childbirth, but it at least offers a taste," observes a post at Quartz. A nurse at the hospital in Shandong province explains that the idea is to make fathers-to-be a little more understanding of what the women in their life have to go through. Which is to say, "It felt like my heart and lungs were being ripped apart," says one Chinese participant.