Geez, this is a timely thread - I was awake for about two hours last night thinking about whether I would want DP at my next birth if I'm lucky enough to have another child.

I would be ropable if HE said he didn't want to be there BUT that doesn't mean that I think it would be helpful to me to have him there.

I fully agree with the question that I think Odent is posing - would you want someone there as your support person who is likely to be distressed to see you in pain and has never actually experienced that pain themselves so can't truly empathise?

TBH, I completely understand the stuff he's saying about finding your husband distracting. I had a very long labour over 3 days with a total of 7 hours sleep. For the vast majority of that I used pain management techniques that I'd read in a book. I'd asked DP to read the book and we'd talked about it a bit but although the book talked about what support he could provide to me in labour, I found that I just wanted to do it on my own. I didn't want to make conversation, I didn't want someone trying to tell me jokes and GODDAMIT I didn't want to hear about where he'd parked the car and how long it could stay there before he needed to move it.

I'm not trying to have a go at my DP - I found the midwife equally annoying. She sat in a chair and watched me because I didn't want to have anything to do with her either. I didn't know her from a bar of soap and she obviously didn't know the theory behind my pain management stuff and looked at me like I was a freak when I was banging my stress balls together.

The techniques worked but I did feel a bit of a dill doing them. And that's the point - I wanted privacy.

So I think there's a few different things to being a good support person - empathy, encouragement and advocacy if need be when it comes to birth choices and arguing with the medical people.

Some people (men or women) may have some of those things but it would be rare to find someone who is good at all three. My DP would have been BRILLIANT at the advocacy if it had come to it but he wasn't good at the empathy. That's OK, I know him well enough to have predicted this.

It's not a male or female thing. My friend Tracy who wants to be at the next birth is equally shocking at empathy but would also be terrific about telling doctors and midwives to go shove it.

Odent recommends doulas - I think that's fantastic. I think it's really helpful to have someone (especially in a long labour) who gets to know you a bit beforehand so they're not a stranger, knows your preferences, can empathise and encourage you AND advocate for you.