Male midwives – what’s your thoughts?

Mumof2.com medical

I was watching a programme the other night and wish I could remember which channel it was on, but it was about a midwife who was male. My initial knee jerk reaction thought was ‘ Really?’ with the funny face pull and frown.

I then stopped myself and decided to think about it. Why did I have the reaction and on thinking about it would I really have an issue if I had a male midwife?

I think, sadly, that midwifery is generally accepted as a female only career. Women complain about male dominated environments and how hard it is for women to compete and I think this may be the same for midwifery but the shoe being on the opposite foot. So the initial reaction was probably because it didn’t sound ‘normal’ to be a male midwife.

The next part of would I have an issue – after thinking about it (and seeing the other pregnant mums who were interviewed who had had this man as their midwife) – I would probably not have an issue. Most gynae consultants are male (although there is a growing trend for more females) but in theory there isn’t a different between having a male consultant or a male midwife. Yes, you usually hope to never see your consultant as usually it means there is a problem or concern during pregnancy/labour, but when push comes to shove (‘scuse the pun’) and there is an issue – you don’t really care what gender they are, as long as they help you and your baby.

I then wondered ‘well, a male midwife wouldn’t know how things felt with not being a woman’ but a lot of midwives haven’t been pregnant, been through labour or breastfed etc and they are still really good at their job. So there went that argument.

I guess in the end – the world needs more midwives and whether they are male or female shouldn’t matter….should it?