How would you feel about having a male midwide

[Lardlizard]

Just interested in the points of view

Don't think it would bother me. A male doctor delivered my first and gave me the stitches after too and it didn't bother me, I just wanted my baby out safe

I had my DCs in the US and had OB/gyn care for four of them and midwife care for the youngest.

All the OBs were men and the midwife practice were women.

Ante natal care in the US means you see your HCPs all through pregnancy and then for delivery. Most likely your HCP will be in a group practice with admitting privileges at certain hospitals. SO you see the partners in the OB/gyn group and one of them will be there for your delivery, same goes for the midwife group. You get to know them over the course of your ante natal visits and they get to know you.

I had episiotomies/stitching that healed perfectly, great post natal care by the nursing staff (all women) and good experiences generally, all except for one dreadful nurse.

I loved the OBs and midwives equally, even though for DC3 and DC4 male hospital residents whom I had never met were in charge of delivery and my OB made it in time to congratulate me...

For me, personal experience could not possibly have the same appeal as medical expertise, education and training.

I had confidence in the HCPs who treated me through five live births and four miscarriages. They had all done four years of either medical school or nursing school and then had done either three or four years of specialisation.

My OB/gyns were the ones who did D&Cs after 3 out of 4 MCs and prescribed the treatment that resulted in successful pregnancy and DS's birth. They couldn't have been kinder or more compassionate.

Not sure if you would need to have gone through the experience of a MC to accomplish that.

One of the OBs in the practice had a side job as a church minister and donated time every year to train HCPs in west Africa to operate on obstetric fistulas.

I had a male community midwife who was great

Out of interest, were you warned in advance that the community midwife would be male?

I think being at home and answering your door to the midwife and finding a man standing there is a very awkward position to be in. Having a strange man alone with you in your home, looking at your stitches and your sanitary towel is surely going to be difficult for many women. Yet, out of politeness and a desire not to waste NHS resources, how many of us would just feel obliged to paste on a smile and say 'oh, it's fine'.

I would be very uncomfortable so would order not.

My first birth ended in a emergency section and there was only one male nurse on the team and he was lovely, he was the one who kept with still while the anaesthetist put in my epidural but I would not have liked him there when I was trying to push and labour on the ward.

Isabelle that's the situation I found myself in when I answered the door to my health visitor 2 days post birth, only he was accompanied by another (female) HV because he wasn't yet fully qualified. I think he's working independently now.
He did seem like a very nice man and a bit nervous as well (it was his first time taking the lead with the questions as opposed to shadowing the other HV) but I batted off his questions to do with bodily functions, breastfeeding and sex/contraception and I didn't mention the massive blood clots I'd been planning to ask about in case he offered to examine me. I was actually dreading him checking my stomach but he didn't.

I don't think comparing a male obstetrician to a male midwife is a reasonable comparison. I must have seen my obstetrician for a total of less than 10 minutes when I was in labour - she examined me, told me the plan, then came back at the end to check one of my tears.

I spent 19 hours with midwives when I was in labour. Other than the obvious stuff of examining me and delivering the baby and placenta, they also helped me on the toilet, looked at my maternity pads, catheterised me when I couldn't wee myself, sat between my legs cleaning off the blood, stuck a finger up my bum to check if I'd torn through, and generally man handled my boobs. Given the choice, I would rather a woman doing that stuff than a man. That's just what I feel more comfortable with. I don't need to justify it more than that.

I don't think I'd have a problem with it but I guess I wouldn't know until it happened. Lots of women report feeling much more vulnerable in pregnancy so might feel differently.

I've supported lots of women who for very good reason will only see female HCPs unless it was a dire emergency. Given what they have previously been through, no-one has ever questioned their right to be examined/treated by a woman but sometimes they have had to wait longer for appointments/to be seen.

Personally, I've always had very good male HCPs. My favourite GP is a man and I've had amazing care and understanding from him and trust him implicitly.

I've had to have some fairly intimate examinations and felt as comfortable as I could have been in that situation. I've also had emergency surgery and almost everyone in the room before I went to sleep was male. I don't remember giving any shits, I'd have been terrified no matter who was in the room.

So whilst I don't have an issue, I absolutely support the right of women to object.

It does really piss me off when people question the motivation of men who go into certain professions.
It's not just HCPs but teachers, nursery staff, nannies, social workers etc
There are bad people everywhere, some people will try to use their jobs or volunteer roles to gain access to certain groups of people and do harm but these are the exception and the solution is not to stop men from becoming midwives or primary school teachers but I've heard a lot of people argue that we should.

I think a man community midwife is a disastrous idea. There are many women who for religious or cultural reasons wouldn’t be able to or be allowed to see him. That could actually be fatal for mothers and babies.

I think a man community midwife is a disastrous idea. There are many women who for religious or cultural reasons wouldn’t be able to or be allowed to see him. That could actually be fatal for mothers and babies

Totally agree

I would prefer a woman though I find it hard to explain logically why as obviously they would all have the same training and hopefully personal qualities to make them suitable for the role.
I had a lot of internal examinations during labour, most of the team were female but the gynaecologist was male and afterwards I felt quite sensitive about that, found it re-playing in my mind a bit - nothing he did but just weird getting used to the idea that a man other than DH had that intimate access to my body. On the other hand I had a lovely male health visitor who went out of his way to say to me that he understood there may be areas of care, such as breastfeeding, that I would prefer to be delivered by a woman and if that was the case he would organise that for me. It was presented as a legitimate choice.

I think a man community midwife is a disastrous idea. There are many women who for religious or cultural reasons wouldn’t be able to or be allowed to see him. That could actually be fatal for mothers and babies.

It would also lead to women being put on the position I was put in. A white woman in a predominantly Bangladeshi area being TOLD that I would have the male midwife because the other women couldn’t have him. I felt ridiculously silly because I didn’t want him either but didn’t have a “real” reason like religion for not wanting him. I was nice and accommodating and it still irks me that i was over a decade later.

Id feel very uncomfortable and embarrassed.

Women have longer labours when men are un the room. Reason enough to never have a male midwife.

So from those of you insisting that you would prefer a midwife who has actually had a child... out of interest are you going to quiz her on whether she had an epidural, Csec or whether she went natural?? Surely they all differ too!! I’m finding a lot of the comments on this thread so hypocritical and full of double standards!!

Youmadorwhat

I'm not understanding it either. Saying that a female midwife is better because of shared experience only makes sense if they have shared the experience - and only then if they have shared the same experience. Even then, I find that people sometimes think that they know everything because they experienced something similar.

Rather than justifying why they don't want a male midwife they are actually also denigrating all female midwives who have never given birth too.

I don’t necessarily think that a midwife is better at her job because she is a woman or who has had a child. But assuming that they are competent I would prefer a woman. Not because I have been abused or think that men only become midwives to look at woman’s bodies. Just because I think birth should be as woman centred as possible. And if anyone is going to inspect my sanitary towel I would rather it was a woman.

It would also lead to women being put on the position I was put in. A white woman in a predominantly Bangladeshi area being TOLD that I would have the male midwife because the other women couldn’t have him. I felt ridiculously silly because I didn’t want him either but didn’t have a “real” reason like religion for not wanting him. I was nice and accommodating and it still irks me that i was over a decade later

That’s Awful!

And brings me back to sex exemptions. Enough women object that I think they should be used.

I do wonder how we will ever remove stereotypes or remove inequality though (and this isn't saying that people shouldn't be able to choose, more thinking out loud).

Many people want to see the end of gender stereotyping - that nursing, teaching, child care etc - are seen as female jobs and yet the only way to change that surely is by men choosing those as careers?

How does that change occur? Particularly in nursing say? If we are going to say that women are "universal" carers ie can nurse both men and women, but men can only nurse men, then presumably more women nurses will be recruited keeping nursing as a female occupation? How do we change this?

I don’t think nursing ought to be kept a female profession. I think midwifery should be. Happy for whatever branch of HCP that deals with prostates to be men only too.

I'd refuse, I think it's weird.

So from those of you insisting that you would prefer a midwife who has actually had a child... out of interest are you going to quiz her on whether she had an epidural, Csec or whether she went natural?? Surely they all differ too!! I’m finding a lot of the comments on this thread so hypocritical and full of double standards!! hmm

The birth element of pregnancy and parenthood (especially new parenthood) would be fairly low down my list in terms of preferring a woman who's experienced everything firsthand.

Are you another poster who thinks the op was referring to labour ward midwives only? It might be helpful if op clarifies that. I'm so sick of having to point over and over that midwives do much much more than assist births.

Rather than justifying why they don't want a male midwife they are actually also denigrating all female midwives who have never given birth too

I'm not denigrating anyone. As I said I accepted a midwife with very little experience who was not a mother as my main (community) midwife. I merely found that women who'd had a child/ren understood and offered more relevabt advice than those who hadn't, in the same way I find parents understand better, offer better advice and are much more relatable to than even v kind sensible non patents. They are so on point they usually make you laugh and feel massively reassured.

But the 'experienced mother hood Vs havent' debate is a tangent here. The topic was male midwives - personally I would prefer not to have males inspecting intimate areas of my body and trying to help.me with breast feeding or trying to explain relationship/domestic issues etc etc iny home after the birth.

BertrandRussell

Can you explain the logistics of making nursing not a female profession in that case?

How do you recruit and train male nurses say, and then restrict them to only working in male urology? How do we staff medical, surgical, neuro, orthopaedics, a and e, paediatrics etc? Male patients in all of these wards who still need intimate care.

How do you work out the numbers of male vs female staff needed? Will you be including health visiting in your female only occupation? Even though health visitors work with the up to 5s (and the elderly, who will also include male patients?) Should district nurses only be female given they go into patients' homes? What about male patients needing intimate care?

I can't begin to fathom how you address this. It seems that the default will be to train predominantly women as nurses and expect male patients to accept this (as has always been the case) because it's just impossible to recruit equal numbers of men but then restrict where they can work.

*parents

• In my home

The thing is, it very rarely works the other way. The majority of men will have no problem with their care being given by a woman, because they don’t have the restrictions or reasons why a woman would need a female HCP.

Until we live in a world where women don’t have cause to have these fears then it’s necessary to restrict the areas where Male hcp can work at a woman’s insistence.