Ok, I know many women with squeamish partners have confessed to wishing their partners were NOT with them in the delivery room.  But I've never heard a doctor utter this sentiment...until now. 

According to the The Guardian, Dr. Michael Odent, a prominent OB, echos these women's secret thoughts and then some, believing that a mother-to-be's labor can be "longer, more painful and more complicated because she senses her partner's anxiety and becomes nervous."   He thinks men - including doctors like himself- only get in the way and that the best setting for birth is one with only a mother and midwife involved.  And he also thinks that "the masculinisation of the birth environment helps to explain the fact that 24% of women in the UK now have a caesarean section."  Well how do you like that.

I admit that my husband was a nervous nelly and nearly fainted when we had a minor complication in the delivery room and a C-section seemed imminent.   But I must say that I think the benefits of his being there, along with my MALE DOCTOR had practical and emotional benefits that far outweighed any risks to me or the baby. 

What do you think? Is it a help or a hinderance to have daddies in the delivery room? 

*Read what these moms REALLY think about dads in the delivery room on truuMOMconfessions.