To not be sure if a 17 year old boy can be in the right headspace to train as a midwife?

[Boysclothes]

I know a few male midwives, all older guys who are nurse converted and are all great. No problem with it at all.

However a friends son wants to be in a caring profession and she has asked me to have a chat with him about becoming a midwife, direct entry so training from next September. She knows a bit about it and thinks the autonomy/quicker progression/pay etc makes it more desirable than being a nurse.

So, I'm just musing here as I know the admissions tutors will make the decision they see fit, but I'm not sure if a just turned 18 year old lad could cope with or make sense of midwifery. It's just so very female isn't it? And if he hasn't got much experience of women, it just seems a bit... I dunno.... Inappropriate, possibly?

I'm going to tell him about the realities of the job but what are your thoughts?

Why does a male dentist make you uncomfortable???

i dont think my friend has much say in the matter. no midwives available. guess it is better than literally no medical care during the birth. it isnt just her it has happened to. yes, it is awful. i am glad i have had all my kids. maternity care is falling apart near us.

anyhow, wanted to ask, isnt there research that female presence only is better for labour? vaguely remember.

Because I don't like to feel out of control of my body, particularly at the command and dominance of a man, and especially in internal parts.

Why is it ok to feel out if control of your body at the dominance and command of a female dentist it not a male? What is it you think the male dentist is going to do that a female dentist wouldn't?

I can understand why a woman would feel vulnerable and not want a male midwife but I can't understand why a make dentist is a threat?

Please don't think I'm being antagonistic, I'm sorry if that's how I come across, I'm just genuinely interested.

Sorry for all the typos - feeling very tired and eyesight is still blurry

And then there's the position - lie down here small person, whilst I big man lean over you and insert things in you. It's a vulnerable position for me and after years of putting up with expecting to be very uncomfortable and sometimes distressed, I now either have a woman dentist or take someone in with me. It doesn't help that I need dental care every three months either.

I am not alone in these feelings, my best female friend struggles with strange men and intimate examination too. We can't be the only ones. We're also wary of taxi drivers and use the local female driver...

"Why should you get over it? Why do we see it as a hang up if as women we do not want a man we do not know to see bits of our body we usually cover up?"

Because it's not fair to deny a person an opportunity based on his/her sex.

To be fair I understand the taxi driver thing!! It may sound mad but if I get in a taxi and the driver is male I always text someone his name and Reg Plate so he can be found if he drives off with me and something bad happens. Being in a car with a strange male makes me feel very vulnerable. Same when a male workman arrives or a guy comes to read the metre or something - I don't like being home alone with a man I don't know!!

Why? I don't know. Probably because I've been sexually assaulted by men from the age of three, not constantly, but at various times untill 26, by both near strangers and trusted family members. No amount of rationalisation has worked to take away the fear, flash backs and resultant anxiety attacks, so I now don't put myself or likely innocent men in potentially uncomfortable positions having to deal with my unconscious reactions.

Sorry Noodle - if is have known that I wouldn't have been so stupid as to ask. So apologies if you've previously mentioned the assaults and I've missed it

TheSameBat - Nobody is denying a person a job. The right to see my body is not an opportunity. I choose who sees my body.

fewer and fewer applicants to midwifery courses are getting in directly after a-levels, so it is probably a moot point. admissions tutors seem to favour those with experience and yes, maturity, but thankfully not a vagina, since that would be discriminatory.

there were recently qualified and student midwives at two of my three deliveries, as well as a student doctor observing at one. couldn't have cared less what gender they were.

the bigger issue here, imo, is that the mother thinks it's a more suitable career than nursing. that bothers me for several reasons.

No worries writer. Not previously mentioned either.

Some of the attitudes towards teenage boys on this thread have made me really sad and angered me.

DS2 is 17, just gone back to school to do his A2s with the intention of going to university next year to be a nurse. If he gets in the course he, like the boy in the OP, will be 18. (DS2 will be very nearly 19).

He has wanted to be a nurse since he was about 5, apart from a year or so when he said he fancied Physiotherapy, because people were critical of his choice of nursing. I have had to have words with the school because teachers have laughed and taken the piss about his choice and been incredibly sexist about it, in particular female teachers.

Since he has been doing at sixth form college, the teachers he has encountered there have been fab. They can see how emotionally mature he is, how empathetic he his and how caring he his. One if his teachers has just had a baby, and joked he'd be a better midwife than the one she had through her pregnancy.

DS2 will make a brilliant nurse. He cares for me a lot, due to my disability, and has been involved with his elderly great-grandparents before they died. He knows exactly what needs doing before any one asks him and is a team player. He is much better than many nurses I have encountered who are female, experienced and older.

If people refuse him to care for them, its their loss not his.

I have to be honest by the time i was in established labour i really didn't give a shit who was in the room or what parts of me they saw as long as my baby was safely delivered.
so for me, age or sex wouldn't matter i'd only care about their competence and ability to interact with me so I trusted them.
the worse midwife i ever had was a middle aged woman, i still despise her.
The best was a young student midwife.

TheSameBoat As discussed upthread there are several well established exemptions to the sex discrimination act where it is lawful to distinguish on grounds of gender. Also as mentioned there are many established segregations - toilets, changing rooms. A movement towards single sex wards in hospitals.

Whilst trying not to come across as picky/goady do you actually object to this being the case?

Men and women are different. No ones better, just different. That's allowed. I hate to think that in the fight to be equal we can't still embrace that we are different.

Fairy your son sounds like a wonderful, mature teenager, I bet he'll make an amazing nurse. He doesn't sound anything like the child in the OP whose Mum is driving his decisions. Nursing will give him a huge choice of areas to work in with men and/or women health/disease.

And total agree femin, tending to a labouring woman is not 'an opportunity'.

To say its 'not fair' to deny someone this 'opportunity' is the thin end of the wedge here. Whatever next?

im always surprised when people say that when theyre in labour, they dont care whos there. I bloody would have. I was lucid, and i remember shouting at tne midwife with dc3 when she was trying to get me to get in a position i didn't want to be in.
My fanny and uterus is excluded from the equalities act

i refused students with labours 2 and 3 actually to.

Thereyouarepeter

The more I read the more i think it's a class issue actually. No one minds the young posh doctors being involved but no thanks to the local lad.

Are you suggesting that midwives are less intelligent, rougher or lower class than Dr's?

People have cited many reasons on this thread for favouring a female midwife.

They include the physical/emotional intimacy of birth, what is required from a midwife in a normal labour, history of sexual assault. Many people have also said they request a Dr of the same gender.

The idea that its a class issue is your own. Could you be projecting?

This thread makes me really sad.

Most medical students are 18 when they start.

i would mind posh young male doctors being involved

Neither medical students nor nurses are specialising in childbirth from the off. Medical students do not see patients for several years.

They are not comparable to midwives.

In this case it seems it's not even the lad himself who is passionate about midwifery. He is actually interested in being a nurse. It's his mum who has raised midwifery as an option.

Many males and females of his age care for male and female elderly people every day, which can involve personal and intimate care. Why are women of childbearing age so special?

What do you suggest is more fitting for a 17-18 year old boy to do? Stay on the dole for a few years and get drink every night til he is deemed "old enough" to do what he really wants to do?

Good luck to him I say