As much as he is a Rabbi, he is not considered mainstream at all in orthodox Judaism, and pretty much all of us ignore what he has to say.

In regards to men being at birth, under Jewish law a man is forbidden to look there, so although my DH was in the room (some women chose not to have their husbands there at all), he stood by my head and faced the wall, so he could see me and my face and give me encouragement, as that is the only dispensation for a man being there under Jewish law - if the woman wants it/needs it, he must be there, but not if it just for him.

If you want any clarity about how it is different when an orthodox Jewess gives birth, you can ask Kelly as she as an 'outsider' has been at 2 of mine... i don't know, they seem normal to me, so I don't know how other people do it that differently (I mean, they come out the same way whether you are Jewish or not haha!)

But that is why in our culture almost all women have a doula, private midwife or their mothers/sisters there, as it is a time for a woman and what she wants, not at all about the husband (which is good, because if DH told me that day was anything about him (other than emotionally obviously, because he became a parent and his life changed also), but physical needs etc, I might have had to kill him...)

Interestingly enough, when we had our temple 2000 years ago and animal sacrifices were bought, women post childbirth bought 2 birds, which represent chatter (as birds chatter), which was the sin offering bought when you sinned through your mouth, because women say things in childbirth they don't truly mean "i hate you, we are never having children again, i don't want this baby etc etc", things you don't mean

I wrote that article about the true Jewish perspective on b/feeding as I had seen his article on a Jewish forum about parenting/childbirth (it didn't go down well), so don't think he speaks for us all.

But in his defense, and i'm not saying don't b/f, be it about everything in your marriage, there is some truth in what he was trying to allude to - there is something about putting ourselves out there and working on giving to the other (and they should give to you and not think about themselves in return, nothing about only females), and that keeping your marriage/partnership strong during those difficult first years of a babies life when you are just oh so tired constantly is important. If you focus solely on your baby, or use looking after your baby (or your job) as an excuse to neglect working on your marriage, in the end it won't be great for everyone.

Marriage isn't easy and it takes constant work (as i continually find out!)