New labour: Should fathers be present at birth?

If there’s one act that defines the generation gap between couples it’s that old chestnut of fathers being present at the birth of their children. Up until as recently as the early seventies, Dad would follow the example of his forebears, bravely pacing, chain-smoking in some ante-room while the little lady went through what is euphemistically called labour. All too often when mother and child emerged, the new Dad would inspect the new arrival, greet the in-laws, administer a peck on the forehead to mother and child and then off down to the Rose and Crown to wet the baby’s head with a pint of ale and a slim panatella.

In the last 30 years or so, the change in relationship between the sexes in particular, has grabbed the father and dragged him into the delivery room to ‘share’ in the birthing experience, handycam at the ready. But given that mankind has been successfully delivering children without Dad and his DVR, has this rush to ‘share’ been a bit hasty? Could this trend be doing more harm than good?

For those that think that this modern version of the labour experience is down to, well, New Labour, in fact a very Old Labour guard was in charge when the trend emerged. Sexual emancipation and liberation coincided with the growth in number of bigger and better hospitals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Fathers could be better accommodated in the whole process and gingerly stepped into the delivery room as midwives and doctors progressively viewed fathers being present at birth, as a positive development on a number of fronts. Very quickly a trend was established as men quickly persuaded each other that attending the birth of their children was a life-changing and unmissable experience.

Meanwhile, women insisted that men take a greater participation in all aspects of parenthood including the most traumatic event of the lot. Birth itself. Today, at some 90 percent of births in the Western world, the father is present.

But not everybody is convinced this has been a good thing, and when chief among them is world-renowned Dr Michel Odent, founder of the Primal Health Research Center and a veteran of some 15000 deliveries over 52 years, more questions than answers are raised. Odent, who introduced the concept of birthing pools and today specialises in home and natural births, believes that the way we are born has long-term consequences in terms of sociability, aggressiveness or, otherwise speaking, capacity to love. After half a century of delivering babies, he is adamant.

“Although it may not be politically correct, I would now dare to say that I am pretty sure that the most common reason for long and difficult labours is the participation of the father,” he says.

Dr. Odent is clear that in his experience, “for obvious reasons the husband is not the best person to help the woman to feel secure [during birth] because he cannot interpret what’s happening. He’s too rational. It’s full of good intention but it’s obvious. This is what I’ve learnt in 52 years of childbirth.”


‘Womens’ business’
Although some may look back with rose-tinted pince-nez at natural childbirth in the home, the reality was often ghastly and traumatic for mothers and while the post war hospitalization of the birth process reduced mortality rates in childbirth, the trend effectively pushed the father out of the delivery room for good, not that he was really there in the first place.

The establishment of the NHS accelerated the trend. Before that, births were at home and Dad could usually be found in the kitchen boiling endless pots of water. He would never enter the birthing room, as midwives presided over births, many of which were far from easy. It was a million miles from today’s experience. In just three decades a father who is not at the presence of his child is almost seen as a pariah, a throwback to a pre-enlightened era.

“Childbirth always used to be women’s business,” says Dr. Odent. “Then something absolutely new happened in the late sixties early seventies and within some years this became a dogma that the father should participate. What is interesting is how fast this happened and historically speaking we cannot disassociate the concentration of births in large hospitals with the presence of fathers at births,” says Dr. Odent.

Other factors may have been the emergence of the nuclear family as distinct from the extended family, and this smaller unit naturally involved the father in a role previously occupied by various women in the extended family.

Adrienne Burgess is a leading authority and commentator on fatherhood and policy advisor to Fathers Direct, and Number 10. She’s in no doubt that the change in attitudes to childbirth between the generations as much to do with prudishness.

“Our grandparents’ generation probably didn’t even see each other naked and yet since the sixties we have adopted are far more free and easy attitude towards reference to genitalia and the detail of childbirth.”

She sees the wholesale involvement of the father in the process as mostly beneficial.

“The woman often wants the man to be there because pregnancy is the time of togetherness. There’s an element of ‘we’re in this together’. They want them to be there to help.”

However, according to Adrienne Burgess, in the UK men enter the labour room in a state of ignorance. She believes it s much better to get these issues out into the open before the birth.

“In Sweden you’re not allowed into the delivery room unless you’ve been through the ante-natal programme,” she says, while also dismissing suggestions that fathers just get in the way, as a ruse used by some doctors to retain control in the delivery room.

Political correctness

However, what cannot be dismissed is Dr. Odent’s unprecedented experience in neither this field nor his desire to air questions that are routinely ignored due to ‘an atmosphere of political correctness’.

“There are three important questions we should be addressing he says. Firstly, does it make the birth easier or more difficult? Secondly, is there any effect on the sex life of the couple, and, thirdly, can all fathers easily cope with the emotional reaction that can occur to the wife giving birth. These are three questions that were never raised, but should be raised now.”

It is largely true that we usually only hear the voices of those who believe the birth was helped by the presence of the father. So it’s difficult to answer the first question, although one mother we spoke to bitterly regretted her (ex) husband being present precisely because he turned out to be an absent father.

But do women really want their partners to be present?

“Human beings, and women in particular, have two languages,” says Dr. Odent “The verbal language and the non-verbal and when women give birth we must listen to the non-verbal language.” The list of anecdotes where the father leaves the room, and once he’s left, the birth takes place, is he says, endless.

Peter Bruce is a marketing manager and has been at the birth of both his children. However he missed the birth of his first, “The labour had lasted a good six hours and there was a quiet period so I nipped out for a sandwich,” he recalls. “When I came back, some 45 minutes later, Annabelle had been born and I’d missed everything.”
His wife, Michelle, admits that although she insisted on him being there, something about his presence held up the labour.
“I guess it’s a bit like when some men can’t wee if there’s somebody in the same room,” she says. “However, this was not the case when Michael was born,” she adds.

Dr Odent puts this phenomenon down to the need for a relaxed environment to enable the free flow of oxytocin, the ‘love’ hormone released to ease childbirth. In a birth situation, argues Odent, the man is usually releasing adrenaline and the effect of this is contagious, causing the mother to release adrenaline, which, in turn, inhibits the release of oxytocin.

Dr Odent goes further, “This is something absolutely new in the history of mankind so we have to be careful when we change suddenly behaviour which has been the same for millions of years. Mammals don’t have their sexual partners at birth. Privacy is a basic need among mammals giving birth.

“When I visit the house I look for certain things, like the toilet for example. People are surprised, but that’s the one place where details like that are very important - to see the level of privacy.


The female environment

Odent identifies two phases of practicing homebirth in the last 20 years. He used to simply attend such births on his own but the second phase and the most recent involves the use of a ‘Doula’

Doula refers to a small birthing team, usually two women ideally related to the mother who have had a wide range of birthing experience between them, making the environment more female. They, as much as Dr. Odent, are actually involved in the birth, while M. Odent manages the birth and, interestingly, the involvement, or lack of it, of the father.

“For example, “ he says, “If the mother vomits during birth – which is not uncommon – the father can often overreact and add to any panic the mother feels, whereas the Doula will say, “That’s OK that happened to me with my second, and so on.”

The word Doula actually comes from the Greek for slave, and indeed female Greek slaves where involved in helping at the birth of their mistress’s children. Never the father.

“I now keep a low profile, occupying the father while the Doula and the mother are occupied with the birth and it makes the process much easier.”

As far as the effect on the couple’s relationships, it was assumed in the seventies that the presence of the father would strengthen the bond between couples. Increasing divorce rates and the progressive breakdown of family units would seem to contradict this expectation. Burgess believes there is no clear link and any problems following on from birth experience were probably already there beforehand, or, incredibly, she believes some cases may have their roots in some sort of oedipal problem. Either way, older parents with long-standing marriages left birthing to women.

Simon Davidson is in his 70s and his wife Adinna had two children born in 1962 and 1964. He can remember a time when a father being present at birth was unthinkable.
“I think in our day, and I’m talking about the early sixties, hospitals actively discouraged any involvement from the father. Not that there was any question of me being present in the first instance. My wife would never have wanted me there and I probably would have fainted anyway,” he says.

As for the issues of the effect on the father, Odent pinpoints a pattern when he visits couples a few days after birth “The mother would very often reveal that the father is in bed, with a variety of psychosomatic illness. There is something like a male post-natal depression”

In this, fatherhood expert Adrienne Burgess agrees that post-natally, more attention needs to be paid to fathers, “the best adjustment is found among men who reflect on their own experiences as children, she suggests, adding, “but if they’re not there they can feel they’ve missed the most important part of their lives.

Company director, Robert Gramming has experienced both, “I was present at the birth of my first child, and while I’ll never forget the experience, I’m not sure I’m being rather self-indulgent there. I don’t think my parents’ generation loved their children less simply because they weren’t present at the business end, so to speak. With the birth of our second child, we did it at home, and I sort of hung around out of the way. The euphoria when she finally arrived was really no different.”

So it seems that despite what is a politically-correct act of modern family relationship development, is actually woefully misplaced. While every case is different, nature would it seem, indicate that something as basic as privacy is a key element to successful birth and that despite what a couple may desire, the presence of the father can be a negative in this aim. Furthermore, in some cases the presence of the father may make the resumption of a normal sexual relationship difficult. Either way it seems the extraordinary ‘dogma’ surrounding paternal presence at birth is about to be re-evaluated to wrestle a degree of common sense from politically correct domination of this debate.