2008 Updates regarding delivery room

Answer 1

It was once imparted to the father over the phone, yet now it's men themselves who often tell their tired partner the sex of the child she has just delivered. But could men be more of a obstruction than a help in the delivery room?

At a discuss hosted this week by the Royal College of Midwives, Mr Odent will argue against what he dubs "the masculinisation of the birth environment".

The presence of an nervous male partner in the labor room makes the woman tense and slows her production of the hormone oxytocin, which aids the process of labour, so the French doctor contends.

This, he says, makes her much more likely to end up on the operating table having an emergency Caesarean section.

"Having been involved for more than 50 years in childbirths in homes and hospitals in France, England and Africa, the best environment I know for an easy birth is when there is nobody around the woman in labour apart from a silent, low-profile and experienced midwife," he says.

"Oxytocin is the love drug which helps the woman give birth and bond with her baby. But it is also a shy hormone and it does not come out when she is surrounded by people and technology. This is what we need to start understanding."

He will be debated by Duncan Fisher, a leading advocate for fathers, who, while pressing for more training for fathers, argues they are there because women want them to be - "and we should trust mothers' instincts