Where Should Dad Stand During Delivery?
Categories: Newborns, Pregnancy & Birth
Parenting comes with many, many questions. Most of them occur after the baby is born -- how do you change a diaper on an airplane, which restaurants don't care if you have spit up stains on your shoulder, and so on. But one question occurs on the day your bundle of joy takes his or her first sweet breath of life.Where should dad stand during the delivery?
MomLogic asked their (female) readers "Will You Let Him Look 'Down There?'" while the proverbial bun is making his or her way out of the oven. Comments range from, "I have no problems with it. But knowing my queasy husband, he won't!" to "Absolutely, he helped start the project! But he said no."
One commenter thinks that "these men who won't look should grow a pair...Did they think the stork brought the babies?" (And what if we did? Huh? What then?) Another points out that the process is very different during a C-section: "my husband looked around the curtain and basically saw my insides sitting on tables etc, i thought he was going to pass out. he hasn't been the same since."
So what's the consensus: Should dad stand north or south during the crucial moments?
Babble's Tricia Honea says that she and her writer husband Whit had agreed that he not go to the land down under while the big event was happening. "I didn't want to look, have a mirror or anything," she says. "I wanted him up by my head so that he could be of support to me." In the end, it didn't matter: "I pushed for 2 1/2 hours and then had to have an emergency c-section."
But what do dads think of this whole where-to-stand connundrum? Mike Adamick, who blogs at Babble and at Cry it out: Memoirs of a Stay at Home Dad), says, "I was actually worried about this before the birth -- whether it would be some scarring experience that I'd think about every time we, well, you know. It made me feel like I was 14, so immature." In the delivery room, though, he had a completely different experience. "Then the labor began and something happened. The baby wasn't right. Something was wrong. My wife needed help, the baby needed help. The last thing on my mind was the look of things. I have so many memories from that day, good and bad, but the only thing that has really stuck is the overwhelming sense of relief and joy."
I'm with Mike on this one. I remember being amazed at the whole process. In fact, I still am. Remember the birth scene in "Knocked Up" that got people all worked up? I didn't see what all the fuss was about. I mean, it's just a baby, right?
For the women out there -- what did your man do? And men, were you around during delivery or did you head for ze hills?
Brett Singer is the editor-in-chief of DaddyTips.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karen 3-26-2009 @ 11:10AM
My husband didn't want to look, but when the time came the nurse grabbed my leg and pulled my knee up to my ear. She told my husband to hold my leg. There was no avoiding it! LOL
I say you don't think about it and just go with the flow at the time.
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Sandyone 3-26-2009 @ 12:50PM
Of my 6 childbirths, my favorite was the one where my husband was on our bed with me, with his head pretty close to mine. He's also caught one and been relegated to a very outer-perimeter position on another one.
Dad should be wherever Dad wants to be (unless Mom wants him somewhere else and he doesn't mind being there).
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mommyblawger 3-26-2009 @ 1:47PM
My husband has caught 2 of our 3 babies, so of course he was "down there". Neither he nor I would want it any other way.
I find it ironic that we do not even question allowing a room full of virtual strangers to touch and stare at our "private" parts and observe the birth of our babies; while at the same time we discuss whether our intimate partners, the fathers of those babies, should or should not see. Now don't get me wrong, if dad is not comfortable looking he should not be pressured or forced to (heck, even I do not really want to see what is going on down there when I am the one giving birth). But why is it ok for everyone else *but* dad to be "down there"?
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The Clever Mom 3-26-2009 @ 3:42PM
The only part of labour and birth my husband didn't like was the smell while I pushed. Everything else he could totally handle (because he is a well-adjusted adult, of course).
For the birth of our first son he held a leg and didn't like it because he couldn't take 3 hours of smelling my insides coming out (to put it politely) and he didn't like feeling so pressured to support me when he didn't know what to do or what I might need.
For the birth of our second son, he stood at the foot of the bed, with out then 4yo older son and watched as the baby emerged in a couple of pushes. Both of my men were incredibly happy to watch birth from that spot.
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bko222 3-27-2009 @ 8:48PM
My home waterbirth was a very private way to go. I was the first one to touch my baby...my husband, the second. That felt very right.
Anne 3-27-2009 @ 4:48AM
Me and my husband often because our children's education have a quarrel.I do not know how to do.
http://www.000health.com
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floodalchemist 5-22-2009 @ 1:43PM
my boyfriend doesn't want to experience that ever again muhahaha!!!!!!!!!!!
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