Straight from the department of stupid studies that help no one comes this little dandy.
[Dailymail.co.uk]Men who attend the birth of their children could end up feeling like failures and damage any paternal bond they may have, an expert has controversially claimed.
Fathers-to-be may think they will have an intimate and proactive role as their child is born, only to find their sole purpose is to provide passive support for their partner.
This can lead to emotional shutdown for new fathers, according to Dr Jonathan Ives, head of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Birmingham.
He said: ‘Having begun the fathering role already feeling a failure may destroy his confidence.
‘It can then be very difficult for him to regain faith in himself once the baby is born and move from that passive state to being a proactive father.
‘He effectively becomes de-skilled as a parent and this can lead to problems bonding with the child.’
Instead, Dr Ives said, men should not worry about attending antenatal classes and wait outside the delivery room.
Lemme ask a question. How can ‘men’ that are so fragile that there little psyche’s can be damaged by witnessing childbirth ever be good fathers?
These are men we are talking about, right? I would say it sounds more like baby has two mommies but that would be an insult to mommies.
Also, why would a man who attends the birth feel like a failure? I mean, after all is said and done, I stood in the birth room five times and assessed the situation. Exhausted wife, newborn life, and lots of medical professionals scrambling around and I thought to myself, “I did this. I did all of this. I rock!”
I guess that is why I am an awesome dad!
June 2, 2010 at 5:27 pm
I just welcomed my first baby into the world last month.
My wife had a rough pregnancy, we were forced to have a c-section, and I was in that operating room pretty much terrified, but trying to put on a brave face and support my wife.
The surgery happens, the OB presents us with our beautiful and healthy baby girl, and I'm pretty much too speechless for words. I dash with the camera to capture the first few moments of life, still feeling pretty unsure.
Then, the nurses finally weigh our little girl. I'd decided for whatever reason, that our baby needed to be at least 8 pounds for us to have been successful (my mission throughout pregnancy was to make sure my wife ate enough protein so she and the baby would both end up healthy)
The OR is mostly intense and focused, people doing their jobs like they've done 100 times before. Then the digital scale flashes 8 pounds, 5 ounces. I did it!
"BOOM!", I screamed. It just came out on its own. Scared the heck out of the nurses and OB on the other side of the room, and then they proceeded to giggle like little kids.
So yeah, I did all of this. I rock. BOOM!
June 2, 2010 at 5:45 pm
When my grandmother was pregnant, she was pretty much kept in the dark about what was happening to her body as she approached delivery. She wasn't told about all the stuff they tell us now, like how much her cervix has dilated (or probably even that they measured that), or how much time elapsed between contractions. Men knew even less.
To those promoting home delivery and disparaging hospital deliveries, I want to issue a warning. My second child would probably had a dangerous infection due to meconium in the amniotic fluid…but the pediatric team at the hospital was able to suction the fluid out of her lungs and treat her…in the delivery room. While there are benefits to home delivery, there's also something to be said for having teams of medical professionals on standby. #4 would have died without medical intervention. After #4, we had no options…C-sections for the rest. (classical C with #4. Due to her prematurity it was safer for her for the doctor to make the large longitudinal incision and lift her out of the uterus instead of a transverse incision and push her out. After that, VBAC wasn't really an option, unless we wanted the scar tissue to tear….which it started to do anyway.)
I prefer what is happening in some places, where birthing centers are being built on hospital grounds. Almost like apartments instead of hospital rooms, a woman can choose to have a midwife deliver the baby while in a home-like setting, but hospital staff are only moments away instead of an ambulance ride. Friends of mine have chosen home births and one delivery included a long ambulance ride to the hospital because of hemorrhaging (something that had happened at the hospital with the first, as well). Their later home births were without complication, so it's not like all deliveries are high-risk.
If a couple opts for a home birth, that's fine, but they should take into consideration the risks involved, and weigh the benefits and downsides of both options. I personally liked knowing there were a teams of doctors within shouting distance to care for my wife and newborn if needed, but that's just me.
June 2, 2010 at 6:18 pm
I've toyed with the idea of home birthing, but, for the same reasons pointed out by Matthew, I've always gone to the hospital. All the deliveries have been free of complications, for which I'm grateful, but knowing Murphy's Law, if I go with a home birth this time around, something will probably go wrong. I like having the doctor and nurses within shouting distance, too, just in case.
I don't like an overmedicated labor/delivery, either, though. Fortunately, whether at the hospital or at home, that part is still optional. With two of our babies, I was induced, and with the pitocin making the contractions more intense, I asked for something just to take some of the edge off. With our second baby, I wasn't induced, and no pain meds were necessary. Everything happened pretty quickly, and the doctor was there just in time to catch the baby and give her a good looking-over.
That, and they had really good coffee just down the hallway from my room (which I could have after the baby was born–in moderation, of course), and the white-chocolate macadamia nut cookies from the hospital kitchen were yummy.
June 2, 2010 at 8:50 pm
If Daddy wasn't there when us older kids were born those lousy nurses would have made us the usual guinea-pigs of the latest vaccines.
Later it got so ridiculous that the other half of my siblings had to be born at home, and guess what? no poking nurses, no needle-vampire doctors, no noisy midwives, and daddy was the sole operator.
(I might also add that he is the best and bravest Daddy in the world).
Joan.
June 3, 2010 at 12:19 am
Matthew,
Couples who choose homebirth do the research and know which options are safe and which carry risks. By the time they are done, they may just end up knowing more about natural birth than some of the new residents who happen to be around to attend a hospital birth 😉 Midwives know how to deal with complications and have c-section rates way below the national average. With both maternal and fetal mortality on the rise in hospitals, it definitely is worth researching. While most people will continue to choose hospital births, I pray that my daughters will continue to have a choice in the matter – something that many proponents of hospital birth are all to willing to take away from us!
Yes, dads were banned when women were put into twilight sleep and tied to the hospital bed – YIKES!
Thankfully, all but the youngest of my children (born at 35 weeks), myself, my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc…have all been welcomed into the world at home 🙂
June 3, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Barefoot Momma,
I don't necessarily disagree with you about the research couples do, although I would probably qualify it with "many". Many couples who choose homebirth do the research…
I also know and acknowledge that midwives know how to deal with complications (and also how to get around pesky little issues like requiring a prescription to administer petosin), and it makes sense that there will be fewer C-sections…doctors are sometimes too quick to recommend it if there's a delay in the birthing process.
My children were all delivered by the on-call doctor from my wife's OB/GYN practice, not a resident.
I'd like to see numbers for the mortality rates. The ones I can find are for all births, and any studies I can find on homebirth are comparing different decades. On top of that, women with serious health concerns (gestational diabetes, obesity, etc.) are less likely to choose home birth and more likely to face complications that could result in death. Given the differences in samples, comparisons are difficult to make…unless one can find a study that compares hospital and home birth for mothers in the same risk category.
I don't oppose home births, and think it would be stupid to ban it. However, I think some who promote home birth as the "only right choice" (so to speak) minimize the risks of childbirth and discount the advantages of hospitals. On top of that, some of the rhetoric seems more directed towards guilting couples into home birthing, playing on emotions rather than providing facts. I've heard too much that implies that parents who don't choose home birth are somehow denying their children something, that we're bad parents for choosing a hospital delivery, or that we're somehow lesser people.
I'm glad you had the opportunity to deliver most of your children in a place of your choosing, and also that your youngest was able to receive medical attention at a hospital. I'm also glad my 6 were born in a hospital. #1 swallowed tons of amniotic fluid (not dangerous, but that meant he was less interested in nursing right away…pumping his stomach helped). #3 had stooled prior to delivery. #4 was an emergency C at 26 weeks (she fell off the growth charts, and had other signs of distress). #5 was another emergency C at 35 weeks (the scar from #4 was suspected to be tearing from contractions…it was). #6 was a scheduled C.
The place of birth isn't really important to the child, just the parents. If it's a low risk pregnancy and the parents want a home birth, go for it. If it's high risk, then home birth is a selfish choice by the parents, putting their desires ahead of the wellbeing of the baby.
June 3, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Here's my two cents. I find the hospital to be a terrible place to give birth. Why? Hospitals were made and function for emergencies and sick people. And laboring women, in general, are neither an emergency or sick. They're allowing their bodies to do something they were designed to do to bring a life into the world. Preventative medicine and the Docs behind this practice has been detrimental to the Obstetrical practices in this country. Birth is a natural and healthy part of a mother's life, and can actually be an enjoyable experience, as long as the OBGYN attending her birth realizes he's not God, he's not the one laboring, and his job, no matter his degree, is to ASSIST in a woman's labor. I've had both medicalized births, and natural births, and I would love the chance at a home birth, but haven't had that luxury yet.
Matthew if you're really interested in this subject, you may want to check out "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" by Henci Goer, and "Husband Coached Childbirth, the Bradley Method" by Dr. Bradley. Both are excellent alternatives to the overly-medicalized paranoia that's happening in the United States today, aka childbirth.
June 3, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Dude. I put it in there, so I want to see it come out.
June 3, 2010 at 7:28 pm
How is providing support to your wife a passive role? For me it was very active and involved from the first contraction. The only thing that could have kept me from being in the delivery room would have been my incarceration for beating down whoever tried to keep me out in the first place.
June 3, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Patty, maybe we've just been blessed with a good OB/GYN practice and professional, compassionate doctors who listen to their patients and don't think they are gods. They never pressured us to do anything about which we had reservations. That included suggestions for amnios for both #3 (cystic hygroma detected at 10 weeks) and #4 (a host of problems leading to a 3-month early eviction, with chromosomal abnormalities as the most likely reason), which we declined in both cases. Our reasoning was simple: there was nothing the amnio would tell us that would allow the doctors to help the baby. "Knowing" wasn't worth even the slightly increased risk of miscarriage. (We consulted the priest who married us about #3, which also prepared us for #4).
Even if we had no problems with any of the pregnancies/deliveries, I would still have preferred for my wife to deliver in the hospital. While I acknowledge that women have been giving birth for millenia prior to the modern method of hospitalization, I want to be in a place where quick access to life-saving treatment is available. For us, the slightly increased risk for both the mother and child due to delayed emergency medical treatment, if needed, weren't worth it. Our choice.
I don't begrudge anybody the right to make their own decision. People have different concerns and desires. One place isn't always better than the other, and it's up to each couple, with accurate information, to make that determination.
I guess that's what gets me the most. People and situations are different, yet zealous proponents of anything ignore that. Should Dads be in the delivery room? Yes if the couple wants that, and no if they don't. Should birth be at home or in a hospital? Home if the couple wants that (and it's a relatively low-risk pregnancy), and a hospital if they want that (or it's a high-risk pregnancy). But zealots, maybe without saying it, give an impression that their position is better in all cases. All children should be delivered at home by Dad in a wading pool while wearing hemp clothes and drinking raw milk, not receive vaccines, be exclusive breastfed for the first 4 years, must be homeschooled, etc., and anything that deviates from that is somehow wrong. Yes, that last line is hyperbole, although I know people who made some of those choices (including me). If that's what they choose, good for them. I just want them to stop presenting their decision as the only "right" decision.
June 4, 2010 at 12:22 am
My doctor is great. So are the nurses at our local hospital. So, I guess we've been very fortunate in that regard (and in many others). I won't poo-poo anyone's decision to birth their children at home, either. It's just that I've always considered that sort of a last resort (if I can't make it to the hospital). I may change my mind about that someday. I toyed with the idea of staying at home when I was going into labor with our second baby (no pitocin; labor started on its own and at home). Besides, it would have made it easier to change my son's diaper when I was seven cm open and there weren't any wipes in the room).
But I have to add that I love the hospital bathtubs (at least at our hospital). They're actually big enough for grown-ups. I'm not usually a bath person, but I wanted to take it home with me.
June 4, 2010 at 2:10 am
Actually, Matthew, my youngest was the riskiest birth – because she was at the hospital 🙁 Midwifery care was much more reassuring than the haphazard, discombobulated "care" we received in the emergency maternity ward. Gentle, attached births are better for babies. Moms who have good birth experiences have an easier time attaching to their babies. Knowing that, doesn't make women like me zealots – even if we are passionate about every woman's God given right to have an awesome, empowering birth experience I'm glad that happened for you in a hospital, and I pray that birth in this country finds its way back to a more natural plane. Ob's are surgeons – I'm glad they are here to do surgery. However, the vast majority of births don't require a surgeon – they just require love, patience, and careful monitoring.
The whole idea of throwing husbands out of the delivery room is outrageous – mothers deserve the love and support of whomever they want to be with them at this miraculous time. However, I do know that many men (and birthing mothers) are not treated as they should be in the hospital setting. That can be detrimental to relationships. I believe the article is another glaring insight into what is wrong with modern birth practices in many places. Dads who have attended birth in both a hospital and at home can attest to the fact that they are a much bigger part of the whole process at home where no-one is going to usurp or patronize their role.
June 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
I wasn't trying to sway you Matthew, believe me, I can see you've got your opinions on not opinionating;) I just wanted to share literature with you that was very helpful to me in formulating my thoughts so they didn't just become the relativistic bs we hear so often in our culture. "I really don't have an opinion, so no one should, and anyone who does is zealous (even if they're not in hemp)." I'm sure you get tired of the adage too, so I thought I'd share some researched writings on the subject – sorry if that was offensive. LOL! I don't think my opinion is right for everyone, I just feel that after reading the research, studying the stats from other countries, such as the Netherlands that don't over-medicalize their births, that people have a right to know that on the whole the children who are born in a hospital often have better choices out there. I know there are emergencies that require medical attention, and that these emergencies can happen in an otherwise normally progressing labor and delivery. If women are so-called "empowered by choice" in our culture, then I guess I just reckon someone better hold true to that in cases other than the culture of death is all.
And yes, I have to be strong here in CT, where we are the leader in OBGYN shortages (pardon the irony there) throughout the nation due to our ridiculous medical malpractice coverage here. Most of our docs have to choose between keeping lights on in their office and paying their insurance, and these are the docs that I've talked to that have never been involved in a suit. They're scared to death, and unfortunately, that fear is coming between many women and children, and their Doctors here. If there were alternatives (I for one am not ever going to give birth in anything big, blue, with a plastic slide on one side, and googly-eyed fish staring up at me from where the sun don't shine) then we here in CT would welcome them. And of course, I'm sure we all recognize that its only going to get worse with Obamacare…*sigh*
June 4, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Hahahaha! I bet Dr Ives barfed or passed out.
Sorry, Patty and Barefoot, but I've heard Homebirth, Breastfeeding, Homeschooling, Anti-vaccination and Attachment Parenting activists often enough that my eyes glaze over about four words in; as Matthew pointed out, the mortality statistics probably aren't comparable because generally only very low-risk births are done at home (which is a good thing).
June 4, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Thanks, Jeannette!
Having our babies in the hospital in no way compromised my ability to bond with each of our children–or with their father. Ditto on the glazing over with regards to "attachment parenting." After the doctor and nurses were done checking out each baby (and I was there each time–in the room or down the hall in the nursery), they were quickly returned to me so they could nurse, and it was always great to hear a doctor say, "Everything looks good!" I have a babysling, and I do homeschool, but I also get my kids vaccinated, and I happen to prefer giving birth to them where professionals are just down the hall in case anything goes wrong.
Like I said before, I may someday change my mind about that and try a home birth with a midwife, but for now, I figure better safe than sorry. I'm not saying my way is best for everyone. I'm just saying that, for now (I'm still pretty new to this stuff) I'm still leaning toward birthing in a hospital. That could change, but it hasn't yet.
June 5, 2010 at 3:38 pm
You're right Jeannette, stats are hard to compare esp. with the way they are manipulated 🙂 and I can relate to that glazed look, I tend to get it and the buzzing in my ears when I hear those hospital stories
Sarah, you should birth wherever you feel safest. God gives us mommies instincts 🙂 For me, better safe means with my midwife – we got out of that hospital asap – before they noticed how orange my kid was getting 😉 and the midwife met us at home to do a thorough checking over. She was much more of a professional than the attending. Still, a highlight to our hospital birth was the steady parading through of interns – I got to explain nfp to them LOL. I told them, that means we know what causes it and actually know when each one of them was conceived 😉
June 5, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Yeah, Being there to watch both my daughters born made me feel like a failure. I had no thoughts about the miracle of birth and the joy of seeing the first breath and hearing their crying for the first time. Seeing my wife lovingly look at our new born daughters as I handed laid them in her arms. Yep, I felt like a total failure, being there. My life is ruined…
June 6, 2010 at 12:09 am
Wow – do you treat all people who may not agree with your pov with such unmitigated sarcasm? How sad!