Men in the birthing room? with Michel Odent, MD

Michel Odent, MD, in his own words, discussing his observations about the impact of men in the birthing environment. Obstetrics is like fashion; it goes in trends. Every ten years obstetrics promotes something very different as "scientific". In the 70's the push by who? WAS it women? got father's in the hospital room with birthing woman. Odent has unique perspective that likely few if any OBSTETRICIANS have experienced. He shares at the beginning that how his observations of fathers disrupting the mother's labor and birth is based on attending birth in every situation home and hospital, both excluding fathers and including fathers. Society, theorists, doctors, women have very rarely included the male in the decision but Odent is saying they haven't LOOKED AT THE IMPACT on LABOR AND BIRTH. Odent is questioning how the social expectation of men at birth happened and progressed, WITHIN THE HOSPITAL SETTING, not by midwives, but by theorists, in the early 70's, without ever looking at the impact of the change; Without asking HOW WILL IT IMPACT THE LABORING MOTHER. What I, interviewer, see is that birth is defined and controlled by the medical establishment, so what ever we do as consumers to try to change practices within the system are going to be distorted and manipulated. The question is, WHAT did happen when the movement, the "fight" began to include fathers? How did men participate in it? DO men really truly want to be in the middle of it? And, do women really want them to be? Can a man today say so if he doesn't want to? Society now, 40 years later, expects a man to be there or something is wrong with him. Now, it's a "betrayal" of his partner if he doesn't. Perhaps, women who birth at home will begin to validate his findings. WHAT do women want when they free themselves from the medical establishment's restriction and dogma? WHAT DO MEN REALLY WANT AND NEED? We need to find out ... way beyond the medicalized, indoctrinated dogma of what we've been taught is normal.