hey everybody today we are going to break down how one of the most important parts of the body that's
involved in childbirth works and that is the cervix so I know you're not here for some kind of
boring medical diagram nope today we are bringing you a different kind of explanation actually we're
going to use an analogy I'm going to show a short animation and we're going to look at
a 3d kind of a stop-motion video all together to get an idea of how the cervix works in labor now
since my background is in engineering and computer programming I even threw in a little code example
of how contractions work now make sure you stay until the end of the video so you can let me know
which of these explanations you liked best now let's jump into that analogy so I like to think
of the cervix as a door the cervix is located at the bottom of the uterus and inside the uterus
is where the baby lives and so the cervix at the bottom of the uterus acts like a door and
when we are in labor it acts like an exit but it's not just a regular kind of door i like to
think of it as a door with this kind of lock here now you'll notice on this lock that there are four
separate dials i like the four dials because the cervix actually has to change in four different
ways before the exit totally opens before that door opens and the baby can pass through out of
the uterus so the four different ways that the cervix will change couple of them you might find
that you already know a couple of them you might not so you've probably heard of dilation dilation
is the opening the opening of the cervix and it opens from zero centimeters to ten centimeters
and then we have a face mint which is where the cervix starts out thick
and thins and it is measured in percentages so we've got zero percentage when it's
nice and thick and then 100 when it's nice and thin then the other two that you might not have
heard of one is a position so the position of the cervix it starts off being pointed towards
our back when we're pregnant that's anterior and then as our cervix changes it moves and
ends up posterior finally the consistency or what the cervix feels like it does change as
that lock opens and it goes from hard which might feel kind of like your forehead if you touch that
there and then it softens kind of like your nose and then it's nice and soft kind of like your lips
did you do that you probably did that with me right so dilation or the opening of the cervix is
the one that we usually talk about the most i have this fun little animation that i want to show you
that shows how dilation can look now you'll notice that it starts off closed and then as it finishes
up it is 10 centimeters dilated now notice in the animation that the cervix doesn't always open
smoothly so it seems to open slowly and then sometimes it makes bigger jumps now we witness
this behavior in labor as well it's common to slowly progress through the first six centimeters
of labor and then sometimes jump to say eight centimeters or ten centimeters even quicker
and that's in that active and transition phase of labor hey if you like that animation make sure you
hit the like button so i could show nathan my son what a good job he did okay so that was dilation
let's add a visual that's really going to demonstrate that thinning of the cervix or
the effacement and for this we're going to look at some stop-motion play-doh
videos so you'll see in this video that the cervix starts off closed and thick
and then after contraction happens we start seeing the cervix thin and it's opening notice
how it goes from thick to starting to be thinner thinner thinner and then eventually at the end we
have a paper thin cervix now i love this video because this quantity of play-doh that's used
for the clothes cervix is the one that we use to make the open cervix so it's really clear
that a cervix in that shape closed and thick can thin and dilate and a face now all of this changed
to the cervix those four different locks to our door they all change as a result of contractions
and it's really just contractions that happen over and over and over and over and over again
so my programming mind from way back in my pre-childbirth educator days wanted to
create a little bit of code just to describe how contractions work and how they affect the cervix
so take a look at this example that i wrote in sort of a javascript of how the cervix would work
and now let's take a peek at a python example what do you guys think you programmers out there that
are watching let me know in the comments below if i got that right or how you would change it
okay guys we talked all about the cervix but there are some other interesting parts of
anatomy and things that happen in labor that i'm sure you'll want to find out before birth happens
so i put a link here to a playlist that you're going to want to check out
if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and i'll see you guys next time bye