Male midwife

[WifeOfAGemini]

Hi I just wondered how many of you experienced care from a male midwife, and what did you think about it?

I had a sweep done by a male midwife, they did check that I was happy for him to do it instead of a female midwife and I agreed because I didn’t want to make a fuss. My logic at the time was that he won’t be able to do his job properly if everyone says no to letting him do procedures.

Wot??

firefighters,> Buildings roads etc
lorry drivers, > roads etc
builders, sites, Buildings roads etc
electricians, > sites, Buildings
mechanics > cars /motors

Err wot am I missing?
why are you compairing a womans vagina /uterus to these work places?

Always makes me laugh when people pile in with “the best midwife I ever had was a man”. They always are the best. Ditto men reception teachers and nursery workers. They’re never just OK, or perfectly fine. They’re always the best, the most popular. Because of course they are- they’re men!

Yes I had a male for my midwife care and at the time he was the only male midwife in Scotland he loved to tell everyone lol! My GP was literal tiny like 1 doctor and 1 nurse and 1 midwife. He was an older guy had a family and had been a midwife for absolute years at the time (12 years ago) and he was brilliant xx

Ikr? Ridiculous.

Lots of things I would be fine with

but I was pretty ill after my second and needed a lot of intimate care like bed baths, catheters and having my breasts manually expressed.

no way would I have been happy with any of that being done by a man

I’m uncomfortable with male midwives and wouldn’t have wanted one. Male obstetricians and gynaecologists should always be chaperoned by a nurse whereas a male midwife would be working alone with no chaperone. For me, that’s a huge difference.

I’d have I’ve. I had a male surgeon a few weeks ago and he was very calming and to the point

I didn't ever say anyone was selfish. I said that the NHS actually tell you that you can decline a male practitioner and then receive a female practitioner but the reality is that they barely have enough qualified staff to cover the patients and experience and clinical risk are major factors in allocation. Labour is one place where someone can be at extremely high risk in one room, while next door, someone is having a perfectly low risk birth in a pool. Both are "just" having babies.

There is no way to predict that on a delivery suite. Firstly, term is between 37-42 weeks. Women can spontaneously labour at any time between then and it will be expected but that's a whole 4-5 weeks. Up to 35 days you could expect someone to show up in labour.

Then you have to count all the women who need to be induced for being post dates AND the ones that are suddenly in need of induction due to problems. Then you have the spontaneous premature labours and the odd person who isn't even booked in your area but went into labour nearby at term or otherwise. You may also have planned transfers as your hospital has a high level NICU.

No way to know how busy labour ward will be but there is a protocol for when it becomes too busy and you need to shut the doors.

I had a male midwife for my first baby, he was good, very calm, I did have a planned C Section which probably made it easier.

You’re easily amused, it would seem.

Drawing a completely false correlation between male midwives and female firefighters is either stunningly ignorant or very disingenuous and goady as fuck.

I would have been quite unhappy with a male midwife. It’s just so very intimate and vulnerable - giving birth. I have had a male gynaecologist treat me, male GP, male anaesthetist but labour and delivery is unique.
I know it will sound irrational to some but it’s how I feel.

Not a male midwife but a male medical student delivered one of my sons, under supervision from a qualified female midwife. He was a lovely young man but was worrying that my baby would take all night to be born, and he wouldn't have time to write up his notes 😆 Baby popped out at 10pm and all was well. 35 years on i sometimes wonder how his medical career panned out

‘I’m a male midwife, and you have a choice whether you’d like me attending to you or not’

vs

’I’m a man pretending to be a female midwife and you have no choice’

is what I most care about.

(See: current NHS regs, UK.)

The maths works itself out over time.
Thats why a a department can perdict that after a big event there will be a baby boom etc.
There would be a margin of error which should result is a need higher staffing.

If not every hospital is working on pure guesstimates when making staffing decisions.

When the term chronic understaffed is used its not saying the department was in an ongoing state of suprise with the throughput of deliveries rather that management failed in correctly projecting forward to match service need with hiring decisions or a failure to fill roles.

So regular protocol activation is red flag and the first question would be are there open roles

Surgery.

If you had asked me before I had my first child if I thought there were any jobs that a man or woman probably shouldn’t do, I would have ripped your head off. And then with my first child I had a male midwife. I turned up at hospital late (due to my procrastinating DH) and was told a male midwife was the only one available. I gave birth in a room where it was me and 2 men. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and he didn’t make me feel calm or at ease, I felt totally out of control. I had issues post-birth - I couldn’t even talk about my birth for about 6 months without crying. I’m sure there are great male midwives out there and am glad to see positive stories here. But for me, I needed a nice matronly woman who had caught 1000
babies and I got a 30-something bloke and I hated him touching me.

No it really doesnt. There are rough ways you can try and limit the number of women you book and you can use previous stats to try and guess, but as for day to day shifts, there is no way to know how busy it will be. There isn't even a good way to know what staff will be there with any certainty at the moment.

Just to add - I’ve had two pregnancies and have had male consultants, surgeons (second baby was breach so c-section) and anaesthetists. I also had male porters and nurses. Totally fine with all of them being male. Completely different situation to a midwife.

Sod that, I’ve always found male health workers considerably more conscientious

FFS most surgeons are male.Your point is?

I ended up in theatre with many medical professionals and midwives and one of the midwives there was male - at first I felt a bit uncomfortable - my legs were up in stirrups and I just felt very scared and vulnerable, but out of the midwives present he was the best - always reassuring me and he really looked out for me. When my baby was born he even grabbed the camera so my husband and I could have a photo. Having said that I will still always opt for female staff for things like smears or breast checks.

I don’t think you can compare a male midwife to an obstetrician or gynaecologist. It’s an entirely different and more intimate type of care. I think that in some circumstances a male midwife would be absolutely fine, but I wouldn’t want one supporting me through a water birth (I was entirely naked during mine!) or helping me breastfeed.

The NHS knows it is not quite true on the "no choice".

The NHS knows that its assault if the male has not obtained informed consent from the woman involved ( Its clear that a lot of hospital policys say ignore sex of staff and would try ignore the assault).

Fife and co are in a FAFO holding mode
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5399949-ehrc-is-taking-regulatory-action-against-organisations-in-the-policing-education-and-health-sectors-whose-policies-misrepresent-equality-law-on-single-sex-spaces

And the MN team are working away on policy too:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5353762-nhs-policy-audit-working-party-thread-3

But I agree that senior staff in Fifes ED wanted a long term employee ( nurse ) arrested for refusing to see the male doctor as a female its a serious worry when additionally the male doctor expected other staff to bring him to attend someone who said they wanted a female doctor.

Again its down to an employee being ranked above the service user and the obligation to obtain informed consent is recognised or respected.