Marriage & Family: October 2003 Archives

Psychiatry professor Robert Spitzer of Columbia is back in the news: some time ago, he interviewed 200 volunteers who reported a change from homosexual orientation to heterosexual orientation with the help of various therapeutic means, and often with a religious motivation for the effort. His report has now been published, and NARTH has a summary.

In some cultures, it's still conventional that fathers aren't present at childbirth, but in the technological West, when women started having to bear their children in a room full of strangers, it became accepted and even expected that fathers would attend and assist at births, somewhat as an advocate for the mother vis-a-vis the medical professionals.

So says obstetrician Dr. Michel Odent. However, his experiences have led him to believe that in many cases the father's presence and his excitement make labors longer and more difficult for the mother.

With words, most modern women are adamant that they need the participation of the baby's father while they give birth; but on the day of the birth the same women can express exactly the opposite in a nonverbal way. I remember a certain number of births that were going on slowly up to the time when the father was unexpectedly obliged to get out (for example to buy something urgently before the store is closed). As soon as the man left, the laboring woman started to shout out, she went to the bathroom and the baby was born after a short series of powerful and irresistible contractions (what I call a "fetus ejection reflex").