Male midwives

[lollypoplady]

Just curious, would you feel as comfortable having a male midwife as a female one?

[Matsikula]

Don't see why not. Most people would be fine with a male obstetrican, after all. Maybe not a male community midwife though.

[choufleur]

Couldn't have cared less if a whole marching band had been in the room.

[IwishIwasmoreorganised]

Not been put in that position myself, but I don't see why I would feel uncomfortable.

They're all qualified professionals at the end of the day

[memoo]

Yes of course, can't imagine why anyone would feel uncomfortable tbh

[madwomanintheattic]

i've given birth in 3 different countries, and only one mw was female. admittedly she broke my baby lol, but ime it matters not a jot who is rummaging around your nether regions as long as they are competent.

[lollypoplady]

madwomanintheattic - she broke your baby?!

[thisisyesterday]

i wouldn't care as long as they were nice!

matsikula... why wouldn't ou want a male community midwife?

[quizling]

Wouldn't bother me as long as they were nice and good at their job

[madwomanintheattic]

yep. birth hypoxia which went unnoticed as no-one was monitoring for foetal distress. ho hum.

the other two don't have brain damage though.

[memoo]

[madwomanintheattic]

actually, you could look at the other way around, and say she was the only one that got the opportunity to save my baby's life... eventually. glass half full approach.

anyway, i'm not biased about mw gender really, just competence.

[madwomanintheattic]

oh, she's lovely, she's 7 now. we've managed to fix her up quite well, considering.

[lollypoplady]

Oh no I'm sorry .

[lollypoplady]

Personally I would feel most comfortable with a female midwife and female birth partner who had both been through childbirth themselves, but yeah obviously competence is the main requirement!

[nagynolonger]

At delivery I wouldn't have minded a male midwife, but I was happy for a female to check the stitches! Also I do think the best breast feeding advice comes from someone who has done it.

[ninjanurse]

I had a male community midwife with both my DC and he was fantastic, really empathetic and understanding, nothing was too much trouble for him. Several of my friends also had him as their midwife and everyone sang his praises. My ex DH also got on very well with him.

[MarsLady]

My favourite ever MW was a male MW. He was brilliant and so good with my clients and their babies.

You get good MWs and bad MWs. The gender is an incidental.

[pozzled]

I couldn't have cared less when I was actually in labour, and would also have been fine with most of the pre-natal and postnatal checks. But I have to admit I would have felt a bit weird having a man do any kind of internal exam/sweep or check my stitches when I wasn't in labour. I would be ok with it and objectively I think it would be a good thing to have more male mws. But I would still feel a little bit uncomfortable.

[reddaisy]

I know it isn't the same thing but during my horribly long labour I had a lovely, lovely, lovely male anaethesist (spl?) who sorted me out with the epidural.

Even before I had the excellent drugs, he had such a calm manner and way about him that I felt instantly at ease.

When I was eventually given an emergency c-section he came back to top up my epidural and the registrar spoke to him like he was shit and after it all I made a point of writing an official note thanking him because he was so soothing.

It is all about the individual. One of my female midwives was horrible and I would have swapped her for 5 men from the local pub if I had thought they would have been any use delivering my baby

So in short yes to a male midwife!

[carlyvita]

My male midwife was nice and had a very good bedside manner, a trait severely lacking in the NHS maternity services sometimes.

I'd say personally for normal, non managed and non medicalised birth I'd rather have a female midwife who'd done it herself though, preferably with a good 20 years experience under her belt!

[Sparklies]

I had a lovely male community midwife with my first who I ended up seeing for most of my appointments. I'd far rather he had delivered my daughter than the cow of a hospital midwife whose mistakes probably caused both my PPH and incompetent cervix in later pregnancies.

Often male midwives have to work that much harder and really want to do the job in order to be accepted in such a female dominated profession, so on balance a male midwife is usually likely to be quite competent and passionate about the work.

[muslimah28]

im going to be the only dissenting voice here, i would not be happy with a male mw. As i wouldnt be happy with a male dr, male nurse etc etc....i dont want men having to see parts of my body that would usually be covered (for religious reasons). However in an emergency stuation, i will take medical help from whoever i have to (in fact it then becomes my religious obligation to do so) and this is exactly what happened in my birth, as i saw male anaesthetists and obstetrician. But the mws did their best to honour my preference for female staff and really helped me maintain privacy and dignity throughout, giving me warnings before anyone was about to come in the room for example.

[Mumcentreplus]

Honestly I dunno...

[MakemineaGandT]

In theory no. But when I was offered a sweep by a male midwife when I'd gone in for (overdue baby) monitoring with DC1 I declined.......just felt weird. Daft really but there we go.

[lollypoplady]

muslimah28 I would feel uncomfortable too but not for religious reasons, I simply wouldn't feel comfortable with one man poking around down there - albeit because he is a midwife/obstertrician, whatever - while my husband was there, I just wouldn't. I also prefer to go to female doctors for smears. Having said that of course in an emergency it's not something I would put much thought into!