do fathers have to be present at the birth?

[CarolinaMoon]

I was intrigued by a comment about this from a trainee MW on another thread.

My dp freely admits he found my labour very stressful - probably more than I did, if only because I was asleep with an epidural for the last few hours, while he was sitting listening to ds's heartbeat on the monitor. He could hear ds's heart rate slowing down and see the MWs exchanging looks with each other, all of which I was oblivious to, and of course there was nothing he could do about it.

What do you reckon?

[Spagblog]

If DH had been the sort of man that gets faint over blood, or abusive when stressed, or neurotic, I wouldn't have wanted him at the birth. I would have paid for a Doula. As it was he was a great help, although I think with DD he needed counciling for post traumatic shock!

[lou33]

i think they should be , but they dont have to be.

if they were there for the beginning they should be there at the end

[Marne]

I'm due in 8 weeks, dh does'nt want to be at the birth because of the pain i went through last time, he said he hates seing me in pain and feeling helpless. I would like him to be there but i would'nt make him, as long as he's not far away then i will be happy.

[Aloha]

Very glad to have shared the first seconds of my children's lives with my dh and he was a good support to me, but then I had reasonably calm sections. Though I was forced to go into labour all alone in hospital and found this enormously, horribly traumatic. He was sent home as they told me I wasn't in labour. I found it absolutely terrifying being alone and at the mercy of the midwives, who were very unkind.

[motherinferior]

I am pleased DP was there, and it was lovely doing a lot of my second labour together at home on our own, but got rather irritated with him in certain stages of my second labour (thinking about it, actually, I suppose that was probably the transition stage where you just want to kill everyone in the world ); but unlike Aloha, I had very supportive midwives so really they just took charge.

[Lonelymum]

I couldn't imagine giving birth without dh there. I know he did not really enjoy the experience very much (hey it wasn't a bundle of fun for me either!) but I never doubted that he should be there and that he would be there. Like Lou said, he was there at the beginning and should be there at the end!

[KateF]

Dh was reluctantly present for dd1 and 2 but not for dd3 as we had no-one to take care of the children. I much preferred getting on with it on my own, although did have a lovely midwife ( for you Aloha)as I have heard so many "funny" comments about the first two births. He, however, has said he felt "left out" by not being there.

[Pruni]

Message withdrawn

[snafu]

Dammit - I'm supposed to be writing an essay!

I made the point (assuming it's me you're referring to, CM) because, after reading that awful article in the Graun I was thinking about the idea that some men (thankfully few, ime) find the whole experience of being present at the birth so traumatic for one reason or another that it has a negative impact on their relationship with their partner afterwards. Obviously, this particular chap was just a 24-carat arsehole so it's not relevant in that context but I think it's an interesting point.

We have become so used to assuming that the father will be there - and hell, we're going through it so why shouldn't he? - but there is some evidence to suggest that it's not an indiscriminately Good Thing...

[CarolinaMoon]

Snafu it was you

I thought it was interesting that you thought that as a MW-to-be. What does the evidence show?

[snafu]

I totally support fathers being there at the birth if they want to be - and so does most of the evidence. However, I think the point is that if they don't want to be there, or are finding it particularly hard going then it is going to have a negative impact on the labouring woman. I don't think it's enough to indiscriminately say 'He's the father, he should be there too' - sometimes it's not going to be appropriate. Odent has done some work on fathers in the delivery room (perhaps unsurprisingly he's not too much in favour of it ) and in my admittedly very limited experience I have already seen one situation where I believe the presence of the father had a very negative effect on the physiology of the mother's labour. And he wasn't an unpleasant guy, just utterly terrified of what, at least to begin with, was a perfectly normal labour...

Maternal perception of pain, for example, has been shown to lessen in the presence of any supportive and focused person (mw, doula, mother, friend, etc) - not necessarily just the father. And I think we forget that some births really can be traumatic - watching your loved one in pain and not being able to do anything about it is extremely difficult and these are not memories that just disappear overnight. They have an impact. I just think that replacing one orthodoxy (no fathers at the birth) with another (all fathers must be present) is a bit shortsighted.

Now of course I should be very clever and impressive and find you loads of whizzy evidence to back myself up...but I must finish my essay

[joanna4]

Good job my dh was present the midwife was on break so he delivered our daughter(he is immensely proud of this ).

[pebblemum]

During the birth of both my sons their dads were there but I also had my mum with me. Good job I did for the 1st one as his dad fell asleep through most of it then kept moaning it was taking too long (21hrs) and the mw had to ask him to leave. With ds2 my dh wasnt too bad but he wasnt 100% sure he would want stay all the way through which is why I had mum there. He did stay though and then commented on how easy labour was!! Men have no idea!!!!

I would never have forced them to be there though, I left it up to them because while it is nice for their support if they really dont want to be there what good would they be.

[Seashells]

It seems to be assumed that 'dad' will be at the birth. Dp loves being there, but first time round he was very young and don't think he fully expected what came next, he was pretty shocked by it all. But he wouldn't miss it for the world.
Think that it can be stressfull for dads because they are more aware of what is going on than the mum, I can only remember little bits of my labours, it's pretty fuzzy as I was drugged up, but he remembers them clearly.
It's a baeutiful thing to share when all goes well, but I expect pretty traumatic for dad as an onlooker if things don't go as planned.

[agalch]

Dp was there for ds1's birth and was way out of his depth and quite useless. I was on my own for ds2's birth as we had no babysitter for ds1 and i had a much better labour and felt as if i could just get on with it and not have to worry about him.I had 2 good friends with me when i had my dd and it was great.They kept me calm and focused and totally understood what i needed and when. I am pg and due in July and plan to have my mum (if shes well enough) and maybe one of my friends too.I would recommend anyone who's dp/dh is not wanting to be there.

[CarolinaMoon]

Snafu, that is interesting. I remember feeling very calmed by the presence of one MW (unfortunately she got called away to deal with an emergency v soon after ), and it really did help the pain . She just seemed in control and not as rushed as the others had been.

Dp got a bit snippy with the MWs by the morning (having had no sleep that night and v little the night before, and hardly anything to eat), and I found it a bit of a PITA tbh trying to get him to calm down and keep the relationship with the MW sweet.

[RosiePosie]

I think my DH likes seeing his children being born, but I can take or leave him being there, to be honest. He's not very good with physical contact, and all I want is someone to give my back a good rub and tell me I'm doing great - both of which he is useless at. Last time, at home, he sat on a kitchen chair in the corner of the room watching me get on with it for most of the time - I remember swearing at him to get his butt over here when I was in transition, and he did move to the sofa so I could cling to him whilst I was pushing. Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic father, just not a great birth partner! I don't particularly like him seeing me like that either, although the mess and the poo didn't seem to bother him. We have possible childcare issues this time, and if we need to, I'd be happy for him to stay with the kids whilst I get on with it on my own, although I do love the fact that he was the first person to cuddle both our babies ( I like to get my breath back and have a cup of tea first )

[CarolinaMoon]

If you go in by yourself, does that mean you get a MW to stay with you all through active labour?

[mrsdarcy]

Bit of a morbid contribution here - I had DH with me when delivering our 3 liveborn children, but when I delivered our daughter who died in utero at 19 weeks (when we already had 2 children), we decided not to have him there.

We felt it would feel like a rather grotesque parody of a happy labour, and that it would haunt us both in the delivery room if we had any more children.

So I suppose that, for us anyway, that isolates which elements of labour we wanted to share: the "screamy" bit when I want to hold his hand, and making sure the baby and I were safe.

[moondog]

Oh md... I'm so sorry.What a terrible thing to have to go through. Did he see the baby afterwards?

My dh wasn't there (not out of choice-was abroad and couldn't get back in time) for the birth of our second child. It was absolutely fine.I could have had my mother or sister,but chose not to.
MWs were lovely and I could get on and concentrate.

[CarolinaMoon]

MrsDarcy

[nooka]

I think it is a really difficult one, because you don't quite know how things are going to be during labour (for either of you). For my first birth it was fabulous having dh there, because he fought my corner when the hospital was trying to say I should be induced for fetal distress (meconium stained waters) and all I wanted to do was go home (we were planning on a home birth). dh is convinced that if he hadn't made such a fuss and threatened to take me home they would never have done the final scan that showed ds was transverse oblique (I then had a c-section pretty much immediately). So he had a real role to play, and I really felt supported. It was great to have him there, and I wouldn't have wanted anyone else.
However, by the time dd was born our relationship was pretty iffy and having dh there was not good, and made things much worse between us. I ended up with a syntocin induction followed by an emergency c-section. I think that dh felt like a spare part, he said that I didn't seem to want him in the early stages (my reaction when in pain is generally to shut down) and that when it all started to go wrong I didn't turn to him - in fact a year later he told me he felt like walking out. The difference looking back is that all I really remember is the fantastic moment when the needle went in and the pain went, whereas he remembers all the trauma. Now I do think if we had had a midwife who had been doing her job that would have helped (I can't remember her doing a single supportive thing throughout). But how could we have told it was going to be such a bad experience? All births are such an unknown. My sister had a bad first birthing experience, and I think quite seriously thought about leaving her husband as a result (she felt he backed the hospital rather than supporting her). Second time around she had a doula at home, and a great experience which both her and her dh enjoyed. I just think that it is the support from someone who knows what they are doing, and what both father and mother to be might want and need that matters. I would have been devastated if dh had said he didn't want to be there (which he did say first time around - later said he had decided to be there in case I died!), and I certainly would not have wanted my mother, but more support for me would have made a huge difference.

[mrsdarcy]

I wasn't posting to turn it into a sad thread really, but thanks . I just think it'd quite an interesting way to isolate the bits of the experience where DH was needed.

[CarolinaMoon]

kama, that's how I felt about it before I had ds, but the reality of it was that I just wanted to be on my own to deal with the contractions, and once the epidural was in and I was hooked up to the syntocinon drip, I spent most of the time drifting in and out of sleep. Dp didn't get any sleep and was just too frazzled tbh to be a supportive companion.

Maybe it will be different next time, but I am seriously wondering if he'd be better off staying at home to look after ds (not that I'm pg yet!).