Would you feel comfortable with a male midwife? - Page 2

[lucyem]

Not for me. I would rather someone with a frame of reference to labor & birth. The same as I am happier with a pediatrician with kids.

That being said I am very glad to hear male midwives do exist.

[sevenkids]

Originally Posted by ldsapmom

If I felt a connection, I would not have an issue. One of my favorite sites: http://www.partera.org/

I find that website a little creepy. Almost every photo he's doing fundal pressure, and his one gloved hand is poised above her vagina like Vanna White showing the audience a new car as he mugs for the camera. Quite often his other hand is the hand that's taking the photos. The mamas are almost always in lithotomy, and the camera is pointing directly in their crotch. Most of the crotch shots are just gratuitous. It's just weird to me.

But to answer the question, no, I would not want a male midwife. i recognize that they can be caring and sensitive and say all the right things, but no. I couldn't even care less if dh was in the room. I like female energy at birth.

[gentlebirthmothr]

Originally Posted by sevenkids

I find that website a little creepy. Almost every photo he's doing fundal pressure, and his one gloved hand is poised above her vagina like Vanna White showing the audience a new car as he mugs for the camera. Quite often his other hand is the hand that's taking the photos. The mamas are almost always in lithotomy, and the camera is pointing directly in their crotch. Most of the crotch shots are just gratuitous. It's just weird to me.

But to answer the question, no, I would not want a male midwife. i recognize that they can be caring and sensitive and say all the right things, but no. I couldn't even care less if dh was in the room. I like female energy at birth.

seven kids,

Totally agree with you on this. Personally, think hes scamming women. Thank you.

[applejuice]

No

[Storm Bride]

I doubt it would bother me. Through my three "births", I've had five different caregivers...three men (one FP & two OBs) and two women (my FP & her sub). One of the OB's, who was on-call when I arrived with my first and had an emergency section, was a bit of a creep...think he went into the field so he could play golf, drive a sports car and get cheap thrills. But, aside from him, I've been much more comfortable with the two men than the two women.

I haven't actually given birth, so I can't comment on the female energy thing. But, there's a woman I know who loves being at the births of her friends/relatives. And, there is nothing on this earth that could cause me to willingly give birth with her in the room. She, and a lot of other women I've met, turn birth into this huge competition....it's all about who pushed hardest, who put up with the most pain, who pushed out the biggest baby, who had the longest labour and on and on and on and on. What little I've seen of women's attitudes toward birth (in real life, not here on these forums) leaves me feeling that I'd never want to be attended by a woman, and especially not one who'd had kids. I just don't like the vibe.

[Storm Bride]

Oh - also wanted to add that a male midwife would really interest me. For a man to take that route, instead of going the OB/GYN trail, suggests a serious belief in women's bodies and what they're capable of. A man would have to buck a lot of social/peer pressure to persist with midwifery. (I must say that "midwife" sounds like an odd title for a man, though.)

[Artisan]

Originally Posted by Noelia430

Yes, I would. I know the midwife you are talking about and he is excellent! I think he's been a midwife for a lot longer than 9 years, as the website hasn't been updated in a VERY long time. I've attended a birth as a doula and he was the midwife who caught the baby. He is pretty hands off and is very gentle and kind. You should meet him before you judge him.

I have no doubts that he is good at what he does... I do not judge him at all. In fact, I admire him for becoming a midwife and not an OB. I'm just wanting to discuss our own personal comfort levels.

[Artisan]

Originally Posted by ldsapmom

If I felt a connection, I would not have an issue. One of my favorite sites: http://www.partera.org/

This site totally creeps me out too. He has one link that says something like "a very young girl". There are SO many gratuitous crotch shots on his site... I just don't get it. It almost seems exploitive of the population he works with... most of them do not have computer access and would never know their pictures and names are all over the internet for all to see.

[wende]

I would actually feel more comfortable, I think, with a male midwife than I would with a female. I can't even say why I feel this way, I don't know.

That said, my ds (who is only 6 so who knows, lol) has mentioned on several occassions that he'd like to become a midwife, except that he doesn't like the name midwife for a boy. With his personality, even at just 6, I think that he would make an outstanding midwife.

I also think that a man who goes into the field must be very dedicated for so many reasons. I mean, it would be very easy to go the OBGYN route and make more money. Plus, as this thread shows, it would be a much easier road client wise. I can't imagine how tough it must be for a male midwife to get started! For that man to have lasted 9 years, he must be an amazing man.

[sevenkids]

Originally Posted by reader

This site totally creeps me out too. He has one link that says something like "a very young girl". There are SO many gratuitous crotch shots on his site... I just don't get it. It almost seems exploitive of the population he works with... most of them do not have computer access and would never know their pictures and names are all over the internet for all to see.

:
Not almost exploitative, it's very exploitative. I don't know any midwife IRL that has such graphic birth pictures posted on her site, with names, ages, parities, etc.
He seems very possessive of them, the way he stands with his arm around them. Something about an older man standing over a young woman's crotch, pointing at it and smiling for the camera gives me the heebie jeebies. I'm not convinced his motives are pure, although I do realize he's the best option they got (which is really scary).

I tend to have doubts about any man who chooses women's health care as a career. Why the fascination? I think it's a great way for perv's to sublimate their weird fetishes into something socially acceptable. It's also much cheaper than med school and takes far less time.

[LoveChild421]

Originally Posted by Raven

A male OB/GYN is like a mechanic that has never owned a car.

I prefer women because when I labour and birth I connect with my feminine energy VERY strongly and I really don't feel comfortalbe being vulnerable in front of men (besides dh).

Just my opinion.

ITA with you. I don't think I would feel comfortable having a midwife who had never given birth herself either...no matter how much I "knew" about birth and about how to support a woman in labor, etc- I never really KNEW until I had my son. I don't think I would trust someone who had never given birth herself to really "feel" me and intuit what I need in labor.

[the_lissa]

I wouldn't.

[Bleu]

Nope. Lots of great posts above, too, on why it's a nonstarter for me.

[GalateaDunkel]

No.

I would never expose my genital area to a man other than my husband unless it were a life or death situation with no female practitioner available. Part of my skepticism toward the medical establishment and undoing the cultural conditioning that doctors are gods - a BIG part - involves not letting down my normal standards of sexual modesty just because someone has an authoritative role.

[the_lissa]

So sexual modesty does not come into play with a female practitioner? What if she is gay?

[GalateaDunkel]

Yes, it does come into play even given that the practitioner is female, inasmuch I choose to receive far fewer pelvic examinations than is considered routine in this society. I think the densensitization of women to being routinely probed in a set-up fraught with connotations of intercourse (the lithotomy position...the phallic speculum...) is a big problem regardless of the sex of the practitioner. Perhaps "sexual modesty" is not the best term for the root of my bad feeling about this. That is part of it, but part of it too has to do with the objectification of the female body and with male power. It is not really based on suspicion that the practitioner is deriving cheap thrills (although I think we have been conditioned to dismiss that possibility a little too quickly, given human nature). I have been examined by lesbian practitioners, but I would not let a gay man examine me. It's fundamentally about power and dignity, not sexual desire. With a woman I have solidarity because she has an archetypal and instinctive understanding of the symbolic vulnerabilities of the female body. Our positions could be reversed. That is never the case with a man, whatever his inclinations or personality.

It is hard to read into a brief question, but I wonder why you are apparently attempting to desconstruct and make me justify my self-protective instinct in this matter? Forgive me if I am misinterpreting you but the idea that the desire not to be intimately probed by male authority figures is an irrational hangup is part of the system I am trying to resist.

[thismama]

Nope on the male midwife. I haven't really thought about sexual modesty and midwives lissa... hmmmm... tho it wouldn't matter if my midwife were gay. In fact I would really like to have a gay midwife.

I'm convinced the midwife who delivered my babe is a closet case.

[the_lissa]

Originally Posted by GalateaDunkel

Yes, it does come into play even given that the practitioner is female, inasmuch I choose to receive far fewer pelvic examinations than is considered routine in this society. I think the densensitization of women to being routinely probed in a set-up fraught with connotations of intercourse (the lithotomy position...the phallic speculum...) is a big problem regardless of the sex of the practitioner. Perhaps "sexual modesty" is not the best term for the root of my bad feeling about this. That is part of it, but part of it too has to do with the objectification of the female body and with male power. It is not really based on suspicion that the practitioner is deriving cheap thrills (although I think we have been conditioned to dismiss that possibility a little too quickly, given human nature). I have been examined by lesbian practitioners, but I would not let a gay man examine me. It's fundamentally about power and dignity, not sexual desire. With a woman I have solidarity because she has an archetypal and instinctive understanding of the symbolic vulnerabilities of the female body. Our positions could be reversed. That is never the case with a man, whatever his inclinations or personality.

It is hard to read into a brief question, but I wonder why you are apparently attempting to desconstruct and make me justify my self-protective instinct in this matter? Forgive me if I am misinterpreting you but the idea that the desire not to be intimately probed by male authority figures is an irrational hangup is part of the system I am trying to resist.

Nope I am sorry if I made you feel that way. I was just confused because I thought you meant the practitioner was deriving cheap thrills. The entire connotations of intercoure, male power, symbolic vulnerabilities make complete sense to me. Again, I apologize if I made you feel you had to defend yourself.

[the_lissa]

Oh and I feel very similarly.

[Amylcd]

I would.