STONE COLD HAVEN

A debate has been raging this past week in the UK, about the role of men in the delivery room during childbirth. A renowned obstetrician Michel Odent has suggested that men should be kept well away from delivery rooms as they add little value to the process of childbirth.

Odent, a veteran who has overseen more than 15,000 deliveries in over 50 years says:

”I am more and more convinced that the participation of the father is one of the main reasons for long and difficult labours. A labouring woman needs to be protected against any stimulation of the thinking part of her brain – the neocortex – for labour to proceed with any
degree of ease. She needs to be in a private world where she doesn’t have to think or talk.

Yet, motivated by a desire to ‘share the experience’, the man asks questions and offers words of reassurance and advice, denying his partner the quiet mind that she needs. The father’s release of the stress hormone adrenaline as he watches his partner labour causes her anxiety, and prevents her from
Relaxing. No matter how much he tries to smile and appear relaxed, he cannot help but feel anxious. And the release of adrenaline is contagious.”

You see, my first encounter with the trauma of childbirth happened nowhere near a delivery room. Matter of fact, it happened at a social gathering while I attended some sort of party, I forget what the party was for, but I remember that I arrived late and was talked into having some dinner first before joining with the rough and tumble of the bash if you will.

The food was being served upstairs in the restaurant area and I ended up on the same table as a good friend of mine Bella, who had given birth less than 3 weeks earlier and was cuddling her little bundle of joy. While waiting for my food, I did what everyone who came through did – congratulated Bella, cuddled the baby myself and sang goo gaa songs as if the baby gave a fuck who I was. I of course questioned Bella about the father of the child coz’ this child was too cute to belong to her husband. I know him well, and G is one ugly son of a bitch.

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Strange creatures we are. We’ll probably find any excuse to suggest that we’re not freaks. But I got thinking this past week about some of our habits that others would think freakish.

I have this habit for example, of washing my hands with soap and water every time I get into the house. There’s this voice in my head that tells me that nothing outside my house is cleaner than what I have inside. Maybe even thinking that outside is just outright filthy. I won’t touch anything in the house until I scrub my hands. I also won’t sit on my bed (whether it has covers or not) without changing the clothes I wore while outside – maybe it’s that thought of all the public places I sat on or the dirt I accumulate at work or wherever.

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