Why Do Dads Freeze During Birth, and How Do You Speak Up?

I found Nick Lampp the way you find most people these days, scrolling. There aren't many men talking about birth online, so when I came across a dad in Ireland whose whole job is getting other dads ready for it, I asked him to jump on a call.

Nick has two young kids. The first was born in a hospital, the second at home. Somewhere between the two, he went from a guy who thought his job was to stay out of the way to a guy who trains other men to do the opposite. The moment that flipped him is one a lot of us will recognize. Here's our full conversation, and below it, what I think every partner should hear.

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Why did Nick freeze in the delivery room?

Fear, plain and simple. He knew what he was supposed to do. He just couldn't get the words out.

Their first son was born during COVID. Nick's wife went to most of her prenatal appointments alone, and partners weren't allowed into the hospital until she was in active labor. So they stayed home for early labor. Nick had taken a couple of antenatal courses, and he says that's the only reason he felt confident enough to keep her home instead of rushing to the hospital when her waters broke. It was a Saturday night. The family sat in the living room watching TV, laughing between contractions. Nick still looks back on that evening fondly.

The hospital was different. Because the baby was a little overdue, the staff strapped on a monitor, and for hours they struggled to keep the baby's heartbeat on the screen. The midwife kept shifting the sensors around and making small comments about the baby getting tired. Nobody said the word emergency, but Nick felt it building anyway.

Then a senior midwife came in and told his wife to lie on her back, put her legs up, and push. That's coached pushing, and it was on their birth plan as the thing they wanted to avoid.

"I knew my role at that moment was to speak up and advocate for her," Nick told me. "But because of what had happened over the last few hours, and I was worried about the health of the baby and getting the baby out, I didn't say anything. I completely froze."

Their son was born healthy. Nick still dwelled on it for a long time afterward.

Did he feel like he had a voice in that room?

He did, and that's what makes his story useful. Nick didn't think the staff would ignore him. "It was more the fear that took over," he said. All he could think about was getting the baby out, which was the story the room was telling him.

What he missed in the moment was the evidence in front of him. There was no doctor or obstetrician in the room, just the midwife from the start of the shift and the senior midwife. "I knew that if it was an emergency, the lights would go on and a number of people would come into the room," he said.

I asked him this because I've been that guy. At our two hospital births, nobody told me what was happening or what my job was, and I mostly tried to stay upright. If you've ever felt that, I wrote about staying calm when you feel helpless during labor.

Something I've started telling dads: you don't have to argue with anybody. You can ask one question. "Is this an emergency, or do we have a minute to talk about it?" If it's an emergency, you'll know fast, and you let the team work. If it isn't, you've just given your wife the space to decide.

What changed with the home birth?

Almost everything, starting months before labor.

Nick's wife had always wanted a home birth, and the second time around they decided early. Because of her age, she didn't fit the criteria for the public option at the time, so they went private, with Private Midwives Ireland. Nick says that service has since closed, and he sees fewer options for families in Ireland now.

Instead of a different face at every hospital appointment, they had one midwife the whole way through, and she came to their house. She'd have a cup of tea, ask how life was going, and only then ask Nick's wife to lie on the couch for a quick check. Their little boy got to try the Doppler. "It was just like a friend visiting," Nick said.

He went into that birth with a sense of peace. He did think through what he'd do if the baby came before the midwife arrived, and she'd told them she could talk him through it on the phone while she drove. They also lived in a city, close to a hospital. When labor started early in the morning, the midwife, who lived over an hour away, said she'd have a shower and then head down. Nobody was in a hurry. Nick and his wife had those early hours to themselves while the kids slept.

That one-midwife relationship is a big part of why home birth felt so different for us too. If you're weighing it, here's how a midwife and a doula differ.

Is the partner really just there to stay out of the way?

No, and this is the belief Nick has built his work around. He hears "stay out of the way of the experts" from dads all the time. He calls it "total nonsense."

"The medical experts are the experts in birth, but dad is really the expert in mom, and he's the only one in that room that is an expert in mom."

Nick Lampp, birth partner coach and father of two

He also called out something I hadn't heard put so plainly. A lot of us want to be the rock our family is built on, he said, "yet we're quite happy to leave all the preparation for birth to the woman, which just doesn't make sense."

Nick is careful about what a partner can and can't do. "They might not be able to control specific birth outcomes," he said, "but the quality of support they provide has a massive impact on the experience regardless of the outcomes."

The research leans his way. A 2017 Cochrane review of continuous support during childbirth found that women who had continuous support in labor were more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth and less likely to have a caesarean. Support from someone there only to support her, like a doula, seemed to help most, and support from a chosen partner or friend appeared to raise women's satisfaction. The authors rated much of the evidence as low quality, so treat it as a likely benefit, not a promise.

What should a hesitant husband do?

Talk to her, and go deeper than "are you sure?"

Nick doesn't think most dads are against home birth. He thinks they don't understand the role they could play. His advice is to ask your wife why she wants it, and what she hopes for and fears about birth. Think about what she goes through, he said: nine months of growing a baby, then being examined in a hospital by people she's just met while she's exhausted. Wanting to labor somewhere she feels safe, with a midwife she knows, makes a lot of sense once you see it from her side.

He's clear that home birth isn't for everybody. He also ties it back to how labor works. In his words, oxytocin is what "supports and enables labor," which is why he thinks it's so important that she feels safe and protected, and why he sees creating that environment as the partner's job. If you're at the very start of this conversation, start with My Wife Wants a Home Birth and I'm Not Sure.

What's the partner's job, in one word?

Support. But Nick means more than the jobs we're comfortable with.

When I told him where my book's title comes from, he laughed. Our midwife Gloria really did send me to go boil the water, because the birth tub wasn't filling fast enough. Nick says that kind of job is the easy part. "We know how to do all that practical stuff," he said. "The harder stuff is at an emotional level for mom, making sure that she feels safe and secure."

Most of that happens before the birth, in the conversations where you learn what's going through her mind and what support she thinks she'll need. Then on the day, you give her what she needs. Chapter 8 of the book is about exactly the moment Nick froze, and what to do with your hands and your mouth when you feel helpless.

You can find Nick on Instagram at @nick.lampp, where he runs workshops for couples. I have a feeling this won't be our last conversation.

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