You're not a mere spectator to the birth; you're the mother's partner, the person who knows her best. During easy births, your job may be trivial, but during complicated births, it can be very important: your wife can be completely wrapped up in her own world where she's doing all the real work, and everybody around you is working on the technical-medical side of things. You're the only one who can get inside her head and tell how she's doing, and communicate that to the medical experts. And sometimes this is important.
During our first pregnancy, I interfered twice, and both times I turned out to be correct. It was a complicated pregnancy that took forever. My wife was at risk of preclampsia, they put her on oxitocin (I think?) to stimulate contractions, and at some point, the contractions were coming at such a rapid succession, that my wife had no time to rest in between. At some point, I noticed she was crying. My wife never cries. Never complains. She's a hardass and when she was younger, doctors have on occasion ignored her broken bones because she wasn't crying out in pain. So for her to be crying was serious. I alerted the nurse or gynaecologist, and they turned down the oxytocin and gave her a bit of morphine to take the edge off.
Many, many hours later, when she was trying to push the baby out, and the nurse and gynaecologist were encouraging her: "It's coming! It's coming!", I asked if the baby was really coming, because she'd been pushing for two hours by now. They couldn't really see. "Well, could you check?" They checked, turns out the baby was stuck behind some bone, and they had to use a suction cup to pull it out. My wife had been squashing our baby against some bone for two hours.
So pay attention and don't be afraid to speak up or ask questions when necessary. Don't be an ass and think you know everything, because you don't, but don't assume they know everything either, because sometimes they don't either. At a hospital, their attention may be divided between multiple births. When birth takes a long time, they may change shifts, and you'll be the only one who's been there from the beginning.
Then again, for our second pregnancy, the gynaecologist was urging us to hurry to the hospital, and thinking of our first birth, I thought: "Have you ever been at a birth? These things take 12 hours at least." We were barely at the hospital, and the baby was already born. No trouble at all. It was the complete opposite experience.
Also: make sure you're home during the first two weeks after birth. Your wife can't and shouldn't do anything; she needs to recover, you take care of her and the household. Also a great time for bonding and learning how to take care of a baby. Don't miss it.
You're not a mere spectator to the birth; you're the mother's partner, the person who knows her best. During easy births, your job may be trivial, but during complicated births, it can be very important: your wife can be completely wrapped up in her own world where she's doing all the real work, and everybody around you is working on the technical-medical side of things. You're the only one who can get inside her head and tell how she's doing, and communicate that to the medical experts. And sometimes this is important.
During our first pregnancy, I interfered twice, and both times I turned out to be correct. It was a complicated pregnancy that took forever. My wife was at risk of preclampsia, they put her on oxitocin (I think?) to stimulate contractions, and at some point, the contractions were coming at such a rapid succession, that my wife had no time to rest in between. At some point, I noticed she was crying. My wife never cries. Never complains. She's a hardass and when she was younger, doctors have on occasion ignored her broken bones because she wasn't crying out in pain. So for her to be crying was serious. I alerted the nurse or gynaecologist, and they turned down the oxytocin and gave her a bit of morphine to take the edge off.
Many, many hours later, when she was trying to push the baby out, and the nurse and gynaecologist were encouraging her: "It's coming! It's coming!", I asked if the baby was really coming, because she'd been pushing for two hours by now. They couldn't really see. "Well, could you check?" They checked, turns out the baby was stuck behind some bone, and they had to use a suction cup to pull it out. My wife had been squashing our baby against some bone for two hours.
So pay attention and don't be afraid to speak up or ask questions when necessary. Don't be an ass and think you know everything, because you don't, but don't assume they know everything either, because sometimes they don't either. At a hospital, their attention may be divided between multiple births. When birth takes a long time, they may change shifts, and you'll be the only one who's been there from the beginning.
Then again, for our second pregnancy, the gynaecologist was urging us to hurry to the hospital, and thinking of our first birth, I thought: "Have you ever been at a birth? These things take 12 hours at least." We were barely at the hospital, and the baby was already born. No trouble at all. It was the complete opposite experience.
Also: make sure you're home during the first two weeks after birth. Your wife can't and shouldn't do anything; she needs to recover, you take care of her and the household. Also a great time for bonding and learning how to take care of a baby. Don't miss it.