A video of a woman in China waiting anxiously outside an operating theatre for news of her daughter after childbirth and only glancing at her newborn grandson has moved millions of mainland Internet users.

In the video, which has been viewed more than 210 million times on Weibo, the grandmother is seen standing still outside an operating room where her daughter had just undergone a caesarean section, the Shaanxi City Express reported.

The video was taken at a hospital in Xian in northwestern China’s Shaanxi province on Feb 14.

According to the new mother’s sister-in-law, surnamed Fang, the new grandmother kept a vigil outside the operating room during the birth.

When the newborn boy was carried out by a nurse, the new grandmother held him in her arms for a short time before she returned to stand by the door of the surgery room and wait for news of her daughter, said Fang.

“She asked the nurses why her daughter didn’t come out. A nurse told her that doctors were administering stitches,” she said. “She continued to wait for another hour until my sister-in-law was wheeled out of the surgery room,” Fang said in the video.

“Everybody else was waiting for the newborn child. Only she was waiting for her own child.”

Mainland social media users were touched by the video, with thousands of comments left on the Weibo post.

“In this scenario, it’s easy to tell who your mother is and who your mother-in-law is because only your mother cares about you the most,” commented one person.

“This is mother’s love which is the greatest love in the world,” said another.

“My mother said she didn’t fear at all when giving birth to us three children. But when I was sent to the delivery room, she said she felt extremely nervous,” added a third person.

Another person observed: “I gave birth to my son through a natural delivery. When I was tortured by the enormous pain, my husband and mother-in-law said ‘every woman will experience this pain’. Only my mother gently touched my face and had tears in her eyes.”

 - SCMP