Should Male Partners Be Banned From the Birthing Suite?

It may not have been popular in the 1950s, but it’s pretty much expected that male partners attend the birth of their child these days. Any man who doesn’t want to would typically be seen as some sort of squeamish dinosaur.

But leading UK obstetrician Michel Odent says we might be doing the wrong thing by expecting men to be the key support person during a woman’s labour.

Writing for the Sunday Telegraph, Odent said:

Having been involved in childbirth for 50 years and having been in charge of 15,000 births, I feel it’s time to state what I – and many midwives and obstetricians – privately consider the obvious: that there’s little good to come, for either sex, from having a man at the birth of a child. I’m convinced that the participation of fathers is one of the main reasons for long and difficult labours.

He claims there are psychological reasons for this, such as the need for women to switch into “primal” mode, which men may interrupt by chattering away and asking annoying questions. Another reason is that the father’s release of the stress hormone adrenalin as he watches his partner labour may cause her anxiety and prevent her relaxing, as stress hormones are able to be “felt”.

Odent claims that he has been with many women as they struggled to give birth, with their partner at their side. The moment the partner leaves the room, the baby arrives.

Hmm. It’s all quite interesting and I agree that anyone who is not a help in labour is a hindrance. Yet I have many friends who had a fabulous birth support person in their male partners and I couldn’t fault my own husband at all (even if he did look a little green when they pushed in the epidural needle.)

The other issue I have with the article is that I don’t see how a male obstetrician, or random midwives who the  labouring woman does not know really well, would be any different from a trusted, loving partner when it coems to distracting a woman and slowing down her labour through fear and mistrust.

What I am going to take from this article is an increased desire to be the boss of my own birthing suite. Did your partner attend your birth? Would you have him or her there again?