Oh brother. Obstetricians speak out on the menace (get it?) of men in delivery rooms: "It was like he was checking out the damage to his property. Makes me understand why so many lesbians go into OB-GYN."
Oh brother. Obstetricians speak out on the menace (get it?) of men in delivery rooms: "It was like he was checking out the damage to his property. Makes me understand why so many lesbians go into OB-GYN."
I feel like the bad thing about men in delivery rooms is just that they don't do what you SAY. You don't need additional input. #theyDIDtheinput
This reminds me of an old Playboy cartoon caption: "[Doctor:] The good news is that you're the proud father of twins. The bad news is that your wife's pussy is totaled."
kjbisgluyg!!!!
@Nic: Nothing that Earl Scheib can't fix. He's got just the tool.
Abe, I didn't even notice your byline until now. I know this is meant to be light, and for dudes, but I wish you'd done some more research.
Oh sure, more dudes in the delivery room.
@Mathnet The project was simply the worst male behavior that OBs don't like. That was it. I interjected nothing. Needless to say even what I did submit was edited somewhat. I don't exactly have the same control over there that I do here at the awl. Also, that it has somehow been interpreted that all OBs hate men in the delivery room and wished they'd be banned is tragic, if typical.
I guess I wish a lot of American OB/GYNs would do more research. And I think it's interesting, and typical and doctor-/man-splain-y (Rx-plain-y?), that the Esquire project was dad behavior that bugs doctors, and not dad behavior that bugs laboring moms.
Well, and of course because I'm not given my usual 2000 words over there, it needs to be said that these OBs work at county hospitals where the patients who come in with any kind of family are maybe the lucky ones. These are not the comfy birth centers. And often these cases come in with the OB having, if she's lucky, seen the patient for one single prenatal visit. And yes, these were all women.
And to answer a comment below about few women in OB. It's one of the same reasons you see fewer women in a lot of top end professions. They're pushed out, forced to make "have a baby" or "be dedicated and put in the 110 hour weeks." In fact, most med school graduates are women. Many just stop practicing.
Oh, that was a rather different idea of "property" than I was expecting... Doesn't anybody think of the children??
Oh yeah, well, I think WOMEN should be banned from delivery rooms!!!
What's that?
Oh, right.
Aside from chickening out about cutting the cord, these can all be solved by not picking a complete moron to make a baby with.
Or not making a baby in the first place!
Dr. Brown: "I can't stand the super naturalistic, uber-crunchy dad who insists on stripping down right after delivery to experience skin-to-skin contact while I'm doing the repair and delivering the placenta."
WHAT. THE FUCK.
I don't really get why the pants would need to be removed in this scenario.
Yeah, they'd never step foot in a hospital in a million years.
And on top of that bizarre, dumb, never-happened story, it's the WOMAN GIVING BIRTH who's delivering the placenta, you asshole.
I AM FIRED UP GUYS
No. The OB's job is to deliver the placenta, to food service.
Um, wouldn't that be why so many lesbians avoid OB-GYN?
I did not understand that one at all.
Maybe so they can feel pleasantly vindicated all the time?
seriously, there's nothing lesbos like more than hanging out with annoying straight men.
Wow, OB-GYNs are fucking pricks.
You know what's bad? When one of the nurses is really cute and you find your gaze drifting from your wife and new baby to her.
Happened to me with our last kid.
LEE!
Very Lenny Bruce, Lee.
Been there. As close as I'll ever get to a three-way.
You know, it's not just male "FOB"s who suck at labor and delivery. There are lots of male OB/GYNs who suck at it, too. And obviously there are also plenty of female docs who are pretty lame and patronizing. I think it's birthing in the USA, in general, that's mixed up. (See The Business of Being Born for some quick facts and opinions and examples.)
Go Ricki! Go Ricki!
Right on. OB's can kiss my ass. I've got a vacation scheduled, so we'll need to induce. Bleh.
@ I could care less: "Well, they called me out of my dinner party and you're not even 8 cm. Nurse! Pitocin!" (true first baby, female doc)
"What is the caesarian rate here?"
"Around 2/3rds, but the vast majority of those are elective." [Wink.] (true second baby, male doc) So we didn't arrive until she was just about crowning, just to make sure that jerk didn't have anything to say about it.
Two-thirds! Two-thirds??
I know.
But we're supposed to shut up and let the good doctor do his/her work and stay out of the way. Yes, not all OB's suck, but the field is definitely crowded with assholes.
I'm sorry, "won't let mom get an epidural"? Is there some new property law I haven't heard about?
There's a time frame. If Nature Boy can keep her arguing long enough it will be too late.
@garge: You have to get his permission in advance to freak right the fuck out over labor pains, too.
The absolute WORST, least supportive place in which to attempt natural childbirth is a hospital. Women are set up to experience an entirely unjustified, but understandable, feeling of failure and inferiority.
(Although, to be fair, I know someone who made her husband promise "not to let" her have an epidural, no matter how much she begged for one while she was in pain. This is still insane and fucked up to me.)
yeah I would read that as "men trying to defend their wives' choices."
@oudemia, bb: that interpretation actually didn't occur to me, you must be right. I was imagining some bizarro Erich Segal scenario.
@bb and garge: Yeah, that seems likely correct.
I thought I was pretty useful, especially, with my first daughter, the two or three times in the middle of the night when I went out to inform someone, ANYONE, that the baby's heart monitor had flat-lined. It turns out this is pretty normal (note to future fathers--the delivery room is brutal, as the person you love is in intense pain, and you're scared to death yourself (because, you know, you're always scared to death)), but they had to take action to get it going again, and one time that action was pretty goddamned intense.
And the no-eating thing is one of many doctor-centric policies that has no foundation in reality.
Until the 1940s, women were actually told to eat and drink as they desired during labor. All of that changed in 1949, when 1 study showed that women who ate during labor had a higher chance of aspiration (food entering the lungs during anesthesia.) Since then, women have often been told that as soon as they feel contractions or think they are in labor, they should stop eating.
There are several reasons why this study, done nearly 60 years ago, should no longer apply to women in labor today:
1.The original study was based on very high amounts of anesthesia, which are no longer used on women during cesarean births.
2.Fasting during labor does not guarantee an empty stomach.
3.The risk of aspiration only occurs with general anesthesia, which is used very rarely for cesareans.
4.Prolonged fasting increases the amount of hydrochloric acid in your stomach which can increase the complications with aspiration.
5.It is not good to base recommendations for practice on one study, especially given that this particular study is extremely outdated.
Arguments made for eating during labor include:
1.Eating small amounts of easily-digested foods during labor can give you the energy you need to keep going.
2.A 1989 National Birth Center study showed that 11,814 women who ate and drank at will during labor did not have a single case of aspiration, even among the 22% of women in the total group who required a cesarean.
3.Sometimes the knowledge that you can't eat during your labor can affect your sense of control. That alone might make you feel like giving up sooner.
4.Often midwives and doulas report that if a mother's labor is not progressing, often eating and drinking during labor helps to get things moving.
What are good "Labor Foods" to eat during labor?
It might help to think about the foods you would eat if you are recovering from a stomach flu. You would not start eating pizza right away! In fact, the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group (a well-known source of evidence-based information and research) recommends the use of a low fat, low residue diet during labor.
http://pregnancychildbirth.suite101.com/article.cfm/eating_during_labor_
And the (tacit) prohibition against fathers drinking booze in the delivery room is also flawed and not supported by a single study that I've seen.
Agreed!
But this is the entire plot of The Verdict!
I was just having this discussion with my friend, who was told to fast during labor (she has a 3 month old), and my wife who was told to bring food to the birthing center (she's due in September).
THANKS, MATHY!
YAY FOR BIRTHING CENTERS, CLARENCE!
@Mathnet: What's the opinion on drinking during labor?
Some midwives and doulas suggest drinking a small glass of wine in early labor, as contractions become rhythmic, in order to help the expectant mother relax and rest up for active labor.
@mathnet: Hells yeah! There's a jacuzzi in the room!
@CR: For what it's worth, you getting naked and climbing into the jacuzzi probably wouldn't go over with the above OBs. I on the other hand have no particular opinion on the matter.
fuck these people. not to sound like an uber-crunchy soon to be dad or anything but jesus h. this is more a list of what's wrong with the entire system of hospital birthing than an indictment of newbie dads. we get it, you want to give mama an epidural and/or c-section so you can get home in time to catch your shows but some of us have different plans for the biggest, most life changing thing to happen to us, ever. fuck a hospital and fuck a status quo ob-gyn.
THIS.
Yeah, the moronic comments about the wife's body made by some schlub built like Jim Belushi are thoughtful.
Hmmm. . .I know guys are crass, but some of these anecdotes, are---well. Hmmm, I say.
But work experience allows me to sign off on the fainting in the OR stories--happens a lot, and it's a pain for nurses (NEVER the OB) to have to haul a bleeding FOB (Free on Board??) off the deck.
And, hi ho, they missed the exciting advent of the recto-vaginal fistula.
JESUS.
FOB= Father of Baby
Fresh Off the Boat (of no responsibility)
This whole experience was incredibly traumatizing.
I'm picturing these Doctors as the characters in Reservoir Dogs, only with more blood.
If you wanna know something and he won't tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb's next. After that he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. I'm hungry. Let's get a taco.
I am too furious at lots of things to make insightful comments on this post, but I would just like to say that mathnet is doing a damn awesome job of bringing to light the degree of fuckery in this aspect of our society.
Thanks for being as pissed as me. And neither of us even has kids--right?
As someone who has had two kids my wife has only three words of advice for expectant mums: GET THE EPIDURAL.
Sincere respect to your wife, but my advice is: Ask a lot of people a lot of questions before taking anyone's advice.
I'm an exception: I was fortunate to have two happy natural births at a small local hospital, thanks to my lovely crunchy OB, who let me do whatever the hell I wanted. The only time she looked at me even slightly askance was when I sneezed celebratory champagne onto the baby's head and then happily licked it off. (Euphoria is some crazy shit.)
Webby, I love that story!
Can I ask ... are you a midwife/doula? Or just awesome?
@mathy - nope, no kids. Just a profound distrust of corporate medicine, especially where it intersects with women's health.
@C_Webb - you win for best story I've heard today.
Just awesome! And nosy! And opinionated!
(@C_Webb of course)
I'm wondering why if "so many lesbians go into OB-GYN," which I find hard to believe considering that at most, 30% of gynecologists are women and maybe %2 of the population is Lesbian, then how come the profession seems to be overrun by douchebag males who just want to control women (and their families) and the choices they make?
If a lady who is squeezing an object the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon wants to have the TV on and her partner chilling next to her in bed during the most important moment of their lives then that should be HER fucking choice.
Birth is absolutely revolting and there no-way id be anywhere near the delivery room. Ole girl can hold one of the nurses hands if she likes. A hand is a hand.
Wow, the vitriol! This piece was supposed to be just a lark about the dumb things men have done in the delivery room, not some manifesto about the misogynistic medical system.
@mathnet, just a question, do you have any scientific background? Then you would understand the physiology behind the rationale of not generally (I say GENERALLY) supporting a pregnant patient eating during labor. Pregnant women are predisposed to gastric aspiration due to increased intraabdominal pressure and relaxation of the lower esophageal sphincter associated with pregnancy. They are at highest risk of occurrence during labor or soon afterwards. Aspiration pneumonia, acute bronchospasm, or the acute respiratory distress syndrome may ensue. These are all life-threatening conditions. But how doctor-centric me to impose such an edict that has no foundation in science.
And @ iantenna: "we get it, you want to give mommy an epidural and/or c-section so you can get back to your shows." WTF! As an 'uber crunchy' physician in women's health, I object to that statement. It is my job to be as supportive as I can to a laboring woman, and if she wants an epidural then dammnit, she can have it! And sometimes a c-section is needed, they are not performed out of a doctor's 'convenience'--do you know that if I perform a surgery without proper indications then I risk getting my license taken away? Look I get it, there are plently of asshole doctors out there and for us newer docs, overcoming the older male-centered paternalistic medical delivery system in the US will take a lot of time to reverse; perhaps we never will accomplish this. But for ever asshole doctor there are hundreds more like myself who GENUINELY CARE about our patients. Why else would we spend years of education, accruing enormous medical school debt, and time away from our families/friends? I don't know why I even bother to write here. I need to get back to taking care of patients. Or excuse me, if it please you, 'getting back to my golf game' with all the leftover time I have working 100 hours a week and not sleeping for days on end. Fuck you.
thanks for your passionate response. obviously we don't know you personally, nor your record as a physician, and yes, positive strides have been made of late in this arena, but you're crazy if you don't think that the dominant hospital birthing paradigm in this country isn't fucked up. decisions and policy are made based on insurance and economic concerns and often have little to do with the health and wellness of the mother and child. do you disagree with that? cause i can break out the data if you need it.
and sure, we get it, that article was meant to be funny. some men are so dumb, right? haha. but really the main thing that it conveyed to me, and apparently many of the rest of us, is that the prevailing sentiment amongst medical professionals is that dad just gets in the way. your colleagues came off like pricks whose main concern is getting in and getting out as quickly as possible. no amount of handholding is gonna shut that screaming lady up and pop that baby out, right? maybe that's not what these doctors meant, but that's sure as hell what it sounded like to me. so maybe it's just a pr spin issue, or maybe it's just my perception being biased.
regardless, i don't support a system that makes you work that much (who wants a sleep-deprived physician?), nor do we blame doctors for how fucked this system is. but without a little self-awareness and critical thinking, you're just another cog in a fucked up machine.
you're crazy if you don't think that the dominant hospital birthing paradigm in this country *is fucked up.
iantenna,
Thanks for your reply. I agree with you, the dominant hospital (birthing and otherwise) paradigm in this country is massively fucked up. The whole 'healthcare system' (which I say with derision, since it does anything but deliver anything to do with 'health' and 'care'--it serves to just line the pockets of the c-student flunkie CEOs of healthcare corporations and insurance companies) needs a drastic overhaul, before it becomes too late. I had hoped that the health care reform would REALLY reform the delivery of care here in the states, but nobody has the balls to cut out the insurance companies and for-profit healthcare corporations and just utilize a single-payer, evidence-based medicine system. Silly me to think that our government might care more about the health of its citizens rather than the votes they get from catering to insurance companies, etc.
Anyway I digress. Regarding the 'esquire' bit, it was funny, however doctored (no pun intended) but the editors over there clearly had an agenda to make fools out of men and docs alike. Look, men are idiots! And doctors are complete assholes! It's easier to keep people in their little sterotyped roles and edit out anything that might prove the contrary.
we're basically on the same team! keep fighting the good fight and don't get sucked into the beast.
And yes I am well aware that I am a cog in a machine. I'm a 'provider' not a doctor; patients are 'customers'.
iantenna, you're right we are on the same team. That's the sad part--most people are, the people that REALLY matter in this debate, anyway--the patients and doctors, nurses who take care of them (me, us, etc). we need another revolution. if a bunch of doctors just up and refused any insurance and just used the old barter system, or fee-for-service, it wouldn't take much for insurance companies and hospitals to take notice. We don't need them!!!
clearly i am tired. please ignore the frontal release (read: neurologic deficit) signs from my last post. It's a little bats-in-the-bellfry out there despite being well-intentioned...