HealthyBabyNetwork.com Blog

Men and Birth: a Vancouver Doula’s Perspective

A guest post byJessica Austin – Vancouver Doula

Feeling supported, safe, and taken care of is key to having a positive birth experience. The biggest enemies of birth are fear and anxiety, which decrease mom’s ability to cope with the pain or discomfort of contractions, and can actually slow or halt the birth process altogether. You can read more about why birth support is important in my article, How Good Birth Support Leads To Better Births.

As a birth doula here in Vancouver, I find it fascinating to watch the interaction between couples during childbirth. It is more intuitive for some men than others to fall smoothly into a supportive role during the intensity of birth. Birth is challenging, and it can be difficult for men to watch the mother of their unborn child working hard, sometimes feeling helpless to contribute. Furthermore, no one really teaches them how they can help.

Thankfully, in Vancouver at least,  gone are the days when the father was not allowed into the hospital birth room at all. It is great that we are birthing in a time when men are being allowed and expected to participate in birth. (Note: This isn’t true everywhere in Canada. A recent study was released showing some hospitals in Canada had been decreasing their encouragement of men and other labour support people in hospitals).

The problem is, providing nurturing support during birth is a new role for men, and it can be difficult for them to know how to best fill this role. On top of that, our culture barely talks to women about birth, never mind men! In the more recent past, men were only involved in birth as medical authority figures. Now that men are able and often expected to be mom’s primary support during birth, it’s important to help them figure out how.

Dr. Michel Odent, a popular obstetrician who has done a lot of research on birth, is well known for his position on the presence of men at birth. His position is that men do not belong at birth at all. He believes that having men at birth increases mom’s anxiety and contributes to longer, more  difficult labours. His article, A Top Obstetrician on Why Men Should Never Be At The Birth Of Their Child, stirred up a lot of controversy on the matter.

I do believe women are more intuitively able to provide positive, calming birth support to other women during labour than men are (this is why so many women, even if they have supportive partners, choose to have a professional doula support them during birth). And I also believe Dr. Odent makes some good points in his article about men sometimes contributing to higher stress levels and therefore more difficult births.

However, I think the problem lies in a lack of resources targeted to men about birth. A woman who has a solid, communicative and supportive relationship with her partner will often find great comfort in having him at her birth, especially if he has a basic understanding of what a woman’s needs are during birth and he wants to participate. In fact, a Canadian study was released recently which showed that the presence of partners (men) in the birth room resulted in better birth outcomes and more positive  experiences for moms.

For men to participate in birth in a positive way, they need to understand and embr