# Husband in the delivery room. Good idea or bad idea? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 7, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210 "2011-11-07T22:02:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/61 "2011-11-08T04:02:02Z")
My wife delivered our son at the hospital where I worked as a respiratory therapist. It was really handy - we timed the delivery for my lunch break so I didn’t even have to take any time off! Joking. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see my son the moment he was available for viewing. Also I am much more comfortable around medical situations and could act as a calming agent for my wife, who was under some understandable stress. Sexual mystique! Don’t worry about it. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/62 "2011-11-08T04:19:49Z")
Has no one else mentioned that being in the room does not equate to watching the baby come out? Because that’s totally an option. Talk to her, hold her hand, and let the doctor and nurses attend the business end of the birth. I opted for the whole show, but I don’t see why that’s mandatory. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/63 "2011-11-08T04:53:30Z")
> [@rekkah](#): > > How much thought have you given to the actual substance of your question? Oh boy! The only thing I love more than lectures is snark! ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/64 "2011-11-08T05:00:23Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > …a sacred mystical object… OK, second time this one has happened. There is a difference between something having a “mystique” and something being “mystical” or “sacred.” mystique= an air of mystery mystical= having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence See the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/65 "2011-11-08T05:14:49Z")
I’m guessing that the OP won’t be into eating the placenta either. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/66 "2011-11-08T05:33:07Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > I’m guessing that the OP won’t be into eating the placenta either. I’d rather preserve the placental mystique. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/67 "2011-11-08T05:38:19Z")
Can or jar? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/68 "2011-11-08T05:52:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > …It is true that in the 1950s men weren’t involved,. but when I was born my mother was hardly involved at all, since, as I understand it, they liked to knock the woman out so she wouldn’t get in the way of the doctors during her own delivery. I think we have it better. > BTW, even 30 years ago the maternity waiting room had shrunk to almost nothing, and I never saw anyone there when I went to use the phone or something. **Mad-Men** did a spot-on example of the old style of childbirth. The husband delivered his wife to a nurse, the nurse took to her room, gave her an injection, told her "Someone will be into give you an enema and shave you, now open your geography textbook to the Herbridge Islands, then wife had a dream about her dead parents, and an murded civil rights leader. Meanwhile her husband broke into a vending machine in waiting room & watched TV. Briefly the scene cut to the delivery room were the woman, who was physically restrained to the table, was accusing the nurse of fucking her husband while the doctor told the nurse not bother trying to talk to her because “she can’t hear you anyway”. If the woman wants her partner in the room with her s/he should be in the room with her. If not s/he should stay in the waiting room. My mother’s first husband not only wasn’t in the room with her he went _to a football game_. My grandmother wanted to kill him. ---
**Author:** ![AngelSoft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angelsoft/32/440_2.png) [@AngelSoft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelSoft)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/69 "2011-11-08T05:57:36Z")
I voted that it’s a bad idea but I’m only speaking from my personal experience. When I was in labor with my daughter, I did not want ANYONE in the room with me. I even sent out my mother when it got down to the pushing part. It was a highly uncomfortable experience for me and I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. And I’ve heard many many stories of men finding it difficult to be intimate with their wives after watching childbirth because of exactly what the OP mentioned. I’m sure it’s not the majority of men but it does happen. Either way, I do think it should be the woman’s decision in the end. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/70 "2011-11-08T06:12:19Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > It is so common nowadays for the dad to be in the room, that if you don’t do it, you’ll have the Doc, the head nurse, the intern, the clerk, the junior nurse, the janitor, the elevator repairman and about eleven additional nurses dropping by to let you know that “you can go in and participate, y’know?” Right, and this is why I was wondering whether men are going into the delivery room these days because they really want to, or whether they are going because they feel pressured to do so. But based on the poll so far, it looks like most men are genuinely happy with the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/71 "2011-11-08T06:19:44Z")
I just have a question – how would you ever feel if your wife got sick, and you had to take care of her personal needs? Would that destroy your view of her vagina’s “sexual mystique” or whatever? Just curious. (I remember back when my grandfather was sick – he died of kidney disease – and my grandmother had to bathe him and help him use the toilet.) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/72 "2011-11-08T06:26:35Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I just have a question – how would you ever feel if your wife got sick, and you had to take care of her personal needs? Would that destroy your view of her vagina’s “sexual mystique” or whatever? Just curious. You answer your own question first. Let’s say you had to help your man with his bodily functions for a while. Are you saying that would have zero effect on his sexual attractiveness to you? I make no assumptions about your answer to that question, but I am curious. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/73 "2011-11-08T06:59:02Z")
For whatever it’s worth, my wife was hesitant to have me in the delivery room because _she_ didn’t like the idea of me seeing the blood 'n mucus-y bits and was afraid that I wouldn’t find her sexual any more after witnessing that. We finally compromised with me staying up by her head and away from the action. Turned out, she eventually needed a C-section anyway. But I don’t think **Spoke** is a jerk for having doubts about it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/74 "2011-11-08T07:11:17Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > You answer your own question first. Let’s say you had to help your man with his bodily functions for a while. Are you saying that would have zero effect on his sexual attractiveness to you? > > I make no assumptions about your answer to that question, but I am curious. I asked you first – don’t try and turn it around on me. I suppose it might, to some degree. Doesn’t mean I would avoid doing it because it might “destroy the sexual mystique”. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/75 "2011-11-08T07:30:27Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Right, and this is why I was wondering whether men are going into the delivery room these days because they really want to, or whether they are going because they feel pressured to do so. > > But based on the poll so far, it looks like most men are genuinely happy with the idea. The phrase “pressured to do so” suggests that you may think this is a silly, tree-loving hippy kind of idea, a fad that will blow over in a generation. That’s why you are getting blowback: I take you at your word that you are just asking for opinions, but I tend to think that means you haven’t really thought through the fact that you are asking “If my wife is going through one of the most emotionally and physically overwhelming experiences of her life. Do I really have to be there?” It’s like asking if you have to go to your mother-in-law’s funeral. ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/76 "2011-11-08T07:39:52Z")
I was thankful and happy to have my kids’ dad in the delivery room both times. With my first, the only reason I didn’t cause bodily harm to the bitchy nurse who yelled at me for not dilating in a timely fashion was because he kept me calm and collected and let me squeeze his hand as hard as I needed to. Don’t miss out, be there! ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/77 "2011-11-08T08:56:21Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Sexual mystique? Sheesh, who needs it. Personally, I have a plan to bus entire classes of high school students into delivery rooms all over the nation. If that’s not useful sex education, I don’t know what is. I bet we would see a meteoric rise in responsible sexual decision making from day one. > > I’d probably have a hard time getting the mothers to cooperate, though. > > (Also, of course, the students would probably be traumatized. But hey, we have shrinks for that…) That’s basicly what happened in my delivery room. My husband wasn’t allowed, even in the labor room (15 hours all alone except for the mean nurse with the cold hands:rolleyes:) It was a military hospital, so I had no choice as to who might observe. When I looked up after my son was born, there were 18 young men watching my woo-hoo. They were all green, while I was red. I was 19, and NO ONE had ever seen that but my husband! Oh, my answer is a resounding YES, he should be there! He made the mess, he should at least watch it cleaned up. ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/78 "2011-11-08T12:04:49Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > You answer your own question first. Let’s say you had to help your man with his bodily functions for a while. Are you saying that would have zero effect on his sexual attractiveness to you? > > I make no assumptions about your answer to that question, but I am curious. Is sex the most important part of a relationship for you? That’s not snark, it’s a genuine question. I ask because you seem to be suggesting that supporting your partner through childbirth (a scary and potentially life-threatening process), seeing your child come into the world and looking after your partner when sick all appear to be secondary to this preservation of mystique. As I said in my last post, IMO preservation of mystique isn’t all that realistic for any long-term cohabiting relationship, let alone one involving pregnancy and children. If it’s really that important to you, you may be best off avoiding having children altogether. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/79 "2011-11-08T12:24:52Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > You answer your own question first. Let’s say you had to help your man with his bodily functions for a while. Are you saying that would have zero effect on his sexual attractiveness to you? > > I make no assumptions about your answer to that question, but I am curious. :dubious: I had to give an SO a fleet enema once before his 'roid surgery. I had never seen such a sight in my life. But let me tell you, you get over it… I think more men get more squicked out over bodily functions than most women do. You do know you don’t have to stick your head in between her legs while she is giving birth, just stay by her side and be supportive… ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210/80 "2011-11-08T12:35:08Z")
I was there, as was my wife’s mother. It was the most powerful experience of my life. You are a moron if you miss it. And I got to participate. The Dr was concerned because it looked like he baby had a 2 vessel umbilical cord (rather than 3, which is the norm). He knew I was a scientist so he mentioned it to me and showed me. I took my hand lens out of my pocket ( which I always carry), took his probe from him and found the third vessel ( a piece of tissue had folded over it ). He was suitably impressed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/husband-in-the-delivery-room-good-idea-or-bad-idea/602210.md?page=5)