Viral photo shows how much 10cm dilation really is

Be nice to your mum! Photo / Facebook

In case you needed a reminder that you should be nice to your mum, let this photo be it today.

Most people know that a woman's cervix needs to dilate to 10 centimetres before she is supposed to start pushing during a vaginal birth. However, a lot of people have no real concept of just how much dilation is required.

A photo going viral on social media illustrates just how much those 10cm actually represent, a visual aid to understand what women's bodies go through during labour.

The image shows a circular wooden board with 10 circles carved out of it. Each hole is numbered from one to 10 indicating how many centimetres in diameter the hole is.

The 10th hole, which is 10cm in diameter, has a baby's head behind it.

That is how much the woman's cervix has to dilate before she is encouraged to push her baby out.

And what's more, the 10cm represent merely the pushing point. The cervix can continue to expand to accommodate the baby's head.

(Are you calling your mother to say sorry for everything right now? You should be).

Steffanie Christi'an, a singer and songwriter from Detroit, Michigan, posted the photo on Facebook and it quickly went viral.

This is what 10cm of dilation looks like. This is why we deserve all the things. Photo Credit: SCV Birth Center

Posted by Steffanie Christi'an on Tuesday, 9 April 2019

"This is what 10cm of dilation looks like. This is why we deserve all the things," she wrote in a post that's been shared 169,000 times.

The photo has also gone viral on Twitter.