What Do Midwives Wish Partners Knew?

When I was writing Go Boil the Water, I asked midwives and doulas the same kinds of questions I asked the dads and moms. I wanted to know what the professionals see when they look at the man in the room.

Their answers were short and blunt. Midwives don't waste words at a birth, and it turns out they don't waste them on a questionnaire either.

Most of what follows comes from Gloria, the midwife at our daughter Amani's birth, and Mary, our doula. If you only hear from two people before your baby comes, these are two good ones.

What do midwives most want partners to know?

That the birth starts long before labor does. Gloria's first piece of advice for partners had nothing to do with the delivery.

"Come to as many appointments as possible. Those dads do a thousand percent better. They don't need to know everything, just whatever makes them a calm presence."

Gloria, midwife

A thousand percent isn't a clinical figure. It's a midwife who has watched a lot of dads telling you which ones she'd rather have in the room. The partner who has sat through the appointments knows her face and her voice. He's heard her answer the hard questions. When she walks into his house in the middle of the night, she isn't a stranger.

Notice the second half of her advice. She doesn't need you to know everything. She needs you calm, and the appointments are where that calm gets built. I wrote more about why partners should go to the prenatal visits and what to ask while you're there.

Do midwives want the partner to coach during labor?

Mostly no. Gloria has watched plenty of dads try too hard, and she didn't sugarcoat what it looks like from her side.

"If dads are trying too hard to say something helpful, 'push, breathe, stop doing x, get in x position,' the moms always know that dad is just saying empty words," she told me.

Then she added the part that matters most. In her experience, when a mom feels micromanaged, she can stall. She can't relax enough to open up.

That one hit me. At our first birth, in the hospital, I was the guy holding his wife's hand, "helpless and clueless on what I was supposed to be doing," as I put it in the book. A script would have felt like a lifeline. Gloria is telling you to put the script down.

What she wants instead is presence: staying close and keeping the commentary to a minimum. Lauralee, a mom of five, put the target in one line: "Be close but not so close I can hear you breathing." (Here's more on what a husband actually does during a home birth.)

Why do midwives say I can't protect her?

Because labor is the one thing you aren't supposed to protect her from. That's how Gloria put it, and it's the line of hers I think about most.

"This is something they can't protect their woman from, because they aren't supposed to. They have to watch and believe in her rather than protect her from it."

Gloria, midwife

Every instinct a man has says to stand between the woman he loves and whatever is hurting her. In a birth room, there's nothing to stand between. Your job moves from protecting her to believing in her.

That sounds soft until you're in it. Believing in her means your face stays steady when she looks at you. It means you don't flinch every time a contraction builds, and you don't hover over the midwife looking for reassurance after each one. She'll read your face more than your words. If you need help with that part, I wrote about how to stay calm when you feel helpless during labor.

What should I do if something feels scary?

Ask the midwife. Gloria was clear that partners shouldn't carry their fear alone.

"It's safe, even if there are 'scary' moments. Ask questions if you're concerned, don't bear the anxiety in silence."

Gloria, midwife

The first sentence is her view from her own practice. The research on home birth safety takes more than a sentence to cover, and the medical groups don't all agree. I walked through what the biggest study found, and where the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) differs, in this post on home birth safety.

The second sentence applies wherever you land on that question. If something worries you, say so. Before labor, bring it to a prenatal visit. During labor, pick a quiet moment and ask her plainly. A good midwife would much rather answer a question than watch you go pale in the corner.

What do doulas wish partners knew?

That you belong in the middle of it. Mary, our doula, has attended more than 150 births, and her advice to partners was short: "Don't take a back seat role. Put yourselves upfront for the best experience."

She also told me about the best partner she ever saw at a birth. He "wasn't repeating generic affirmations from a childbirth class. He was reminding her of who she was: her strength, her perseverance, and the qualities he loved and admired in her."

Put Gloria and Mary side by side and you get a clear picture. Skip the generic lines. When you do speak, say the true things only you can say, because you know her better than anyone else in the room.

There's research behind the idea that the people beside a woman in labor matter. A 2017 Cochrane review of continuous support during childbirth pooled 26 trials with 15,858 women. Women who had continuous support during labor were more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth, less likely to have a caesarean, and had shorter labors on average. The review found support from someone there only to provide support, such as a doula, seemed most helpful, and that support from a chosen family member or friend appeared to increase women's satisfaction compared with having no companion. The authors rated much of the evidence as low quality, so read those findings as a likely benefit, not a promise.

That's one reason I push couples to consider a doula, especially for a first birth. If you're deciding, here's the difference between a midwife and a doula.

What's one thing I can do this week?

Ask your midwife what she needs from you, in those words. At your next appointment, try: "When labor gets hard, what do you want me doing, and what should I leave to you?"

Then write down what she says. Every midwife runs her births a little differently, and hers is the answer that counts. You'll walk into the birth with a job description from the person who knows the room best.

Chapter 10 of the book, Voices of Experience, collects what midwives, doulas, moms, and dads told me in their own words.

This post is general information, not medical advice. Talk with your midwife or doctor about your own situation.