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?

I would like to be cared for by someone who is caring, kind and knowledgeable. If a young man has these characteristics, why not?

Good on him. I would have no more problem with being treated by a male midwife/student midwife than I would a female one.

I think though he needs to be very tough to go down such a path as Unfortunatly it is one of those careers where some people will think it's odd/question the motives/not trust a male staff member (sometimes with good reason of course)

As a 38 year old woman I cannot imagine a teenager giving me the support I need during childbirth. I can't imagine an older man going through an intimate procedure who would be comfortable with a teenage girl doing it, and this is just the same. Midwives need to have maturity and empathy, and even the nicest teenagers are still in the process of developing those qualities. It is the age that is the issue for me, but to be fair I never saw young midwives during my pg/births - perhaps I would have a different view if I'd experienced it.

To be perfectly clear, having the right to say no to anyone doing anything to you in a medical capacity for whatever reason you fancy is absolutely nothing to do with whether that person should be allowed to be in their job. I'm astounded that people refuse to see the difference.

The problem is though, that in a hypothetical situation, we could have a labour ward staffed completely, or mostly by men.

Then what would happen? Would the NHS be allowed, or even obliged, to discriminate on gender when they were employing? Would it be ok for the NHS to waste money training men in the name of equal opportunity, but to then leave them unemployable because enough women say they don't want to deal with them?

Spot on, femin - if you can't put the woman's need first, you are in the wrong job.

I would like to be cared for by someone who is caring, kind and knowledgeable. If a young man has these characteristics, why not?

And, just because some other people won't want to be treated by a young man, it doesn't mean that he shouldn't be allowed to become a midwife. Nor does it make it strange that he might want to become one. All that matters is that he has the qualities required to do the job well.

A woman has the right to request a female HCP for intimate procedures.

A racist does not have the right to request a HCP of a particular colour. Because they are not the same principle, and it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

When I trained as a midwife there were 17 and 18 year olds in my cohort. Who were good students and went on to be great midwives. Believe me the ones which don't cut it on placement don't qualify. If he's unprofessional, immature, even if he doesnt have the right people skills or commu ication skills etc people will come down on him. He would have to pull his socks up quickly.

I also used to know a male student midwife who was 18 or 19 when he started training. Never knew him professionally as we were at different hospitals but I believe he was very well thought of both by the women he looked after and the midwives.

Conversely I have known some twat students in their late 20s and 30s.

WooWoo: I think that fewer and fewer people would object to male midwives if there were more of them. It would stop seeming so unusual (and therefore something to worry about). Being male doesn't seem to hold obstetricians or gynaecologists back.

Frankly there shouldn't be a situation where all the medical staff anywhere are all male. That would be a big sign to the NHS that something was going dreadfully wrong with their recruitment practices. You'd only get a situation like that by discriminating against women.

I agree with you, CalamitouslyWrong - just because some people dont want to be treated by a male midwife, doesn't mean that OP's friend's son shouldn't be able to train. As for the poster who wrote,

I can't imagine why midwifery appeals to a teenage boy

That sounds to me to be just as enlightened as the man who, when I tried to talk to him about getting girls into engineering, told me "Engineering is boy job, it always has been and always will be".

I am the mother of two teenage boys. Both are caring people and interested in lots of things. I am surprised that so many posters on this thread think it unlikely that there could ever be a teenage boy who is so interested in the creation of life to want to go into midwifery.

'People may have the right to refuse care from HCPs based on their own prejudices or whims or whatever, but it is absolutely discriminatory to say 'you can't become an X because you of your gender/religion/race/any other protected characteristic'. '

If that's what we are discussing, CalamitouslyWrong, then I agree with you.

The problem will arise when someone refuses care from a male midwife and the baby either dies or is severely disabled because the care the mother demands is not instantly available. Of course, everyone should have a choice and it should always be available. But sometimes that isn't the case.

A woman has the right to request a female HCP for intimate procedures. A racist does not have the right to request a HCP of a particular colour. Because they are not the same principle, and it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

But in pretty much all cases, a decent HCP wouldn't want to force themselves on that racist. They'd pass them along to a colleague. The racist might run into a problem if there were no colleagues that met their racial criteria, but that's their problem (and I find it hard to have much sympathy).

It shouldn't be the case that they can't find a female HCP because all the staff are male.

I think people are beating really negative here.

A young male nurse could be doing lots of hands on intimate things (washing, changing dressings, lifting you onto a bed pan). A young male working as a career would be doing stuff like that with people who need help at home also.

He might be a much better midwife than some battle axe middle aged woman who knows it all and has a birth agenda that doesn't match you own.

Do you all refuse a smeer test from male doctors? Should all men refuse to have a female nurse help them on the toilet?

You should see the midwife as a professional, not as a man/woman.

A racist does not have the right to request a HCP of a particular colour. Because they are not the same principle, and it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

I can see the difference, but I can also see the similarity.

'I don't want a male professional to work with me because I once had a bad experience with one' isn't that different from 'I don't want a black professional to work with me because I once had a bad experience with one'.

Both are making a choice against an individual because of features of their birth that they cannot help, and that give no indication of their attitude, professionalism, or competence.

I would hope that everything a mw needs to know is taught after some of the strange ideas of bodies I have seen on here

'A racist does not have the right to request a HCP of a particular colour. Because they are not the same principle, and it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise.'

Due to paranoia and the triggering of past incidents, my friend was hysterical when she thought she was going to have an Irish midwife whlst in labour. I was very grateful for the professional and caring response of the midwife who found her a different carer without prioritising her own feelings of rejection. Especially as my friend was screaming about the IRA and swearing like a soldier.
That woman put the needs of an stressed-out, unstable patient first. My friend did send her a card with an explanation and a gift once she'd recovered her sanity.

After giving birth to my one child, and finding labour a deeply painful and not terribly glamorous experience, I remember thinking that only women who have given birth should be allowed to be midwives.

I would have no more objection to a 17 year old boy training to be a midwife than I would to a 35 year old child-free woman doing the same. If you haven't been through it, and even if you have, you need a bit of empathy for the person whose body is being torn apart. If he cares, he'll be fine.

There was a young lad in my interview group when I was applying for midwifery. He was a very nice young boy who believed in what he was doing. unusual? yes. wrong? no.

You know he wouldn't get packed off to placement straight away knowing nothing about female anatomy. He will have anatomy lessons, he will learn the mechanics of birth and more importantly will spend time discussing holistic care, empowerment, informed decision making, women's experience of childbirth and other such things before he gets anywhere near a vagina or a breast.

I think that, if there were likely to be damage to a child (or the woman) because of a request she'd made about her care, the HCPs would explain that to her. That way she can make an informed decision based on the realities she encounters at the time. In the same way that a woman having a homebirth because of an acute fear of hospitals may be presented with a choice due to complications arising. The thing about medical care (and particularly urgent care) is that sometimes your choices will be constrained by all sorts of factors. You can't simply plan out your perfect birth and have it unfold just as you want it because reality gets in the way.

I think its great that he wants to train as a midwife BUT we have a 17 year old apprentice at work and tbh I cant imagine him having the maturity to deal with women in labour. Also with the nature of pregnancy labour and birth I just cant imagine having him doing an internal examination etc .

I should probably add I had a make midwife for one of my pregnancies but he was in his 40s and I had absolutely no issue with that.

'You can't simply plan out your perfect birth and have it unfold just as you want it because reality gets in the way.'

I remember.

I would like to say that it wouldn't be an issue, but it kind of was for me. When I was close to delivering my oldest, 5 young men trooped in and positioned themselves at the business end..I felt like I was a zoo animal. My Mum asked who they were 'Oh they are medical students who need to witness a birth, you don't mind do you'..I did mind and told them to feck off to the far side of feck. I think I would have been less emphatic if they were female though I did also object to the numbers crowding in! I am not sure how I would feel about a male carer for my labour.

Of course he should be allowed to become a midwife. The fact that he's male shouldn't make a difference if he's good enough (once qualified), and if age is the issue, then does the same prejudice apply equally to a girl of the same age?