The making of a male midwife
Date: Oct 09,2017 Read:
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In the two years since he began his training, Dilan, 20, has cared for hundreds of women, and exactly seven have refused to be treated by him. That's not many, he thinks. He hasn't ever let it get to him.
Instead, whenever it happens, he finds another way to make himself useful. Maybe brew the woman a cup of tea or coffee and leave it outside her room."I really wouldn't feel comfortable with a man delivering my baby," says the opening post. "I know this may be very un-PC."
The replies are broadly sympathetic. Many understand where the mum is coming from, but most assure her that skill and empathy matter more than gender. And anyway, aren't lots of obstetricians men? Another user says she had the same concerns before giving birth, but "by the time I got to labour I couldn't have given a flying monkey who looked 'down there'."Still, Dilan knows not all mothers will accept having their babies delivered by a man. If Michelle-Grace had turned him down, he wouldn't have taken offence.In the two years since he began his training, Dilan, 20, has cared for hundreds of women, and exactly seven have refused to be treated by him.
That's not many, he thinks. He hasn't ever let it get to him.Instead, whenever it happens, he finds another way to make himself useful. Maybe brew the woman a cup of tea or coffee and leave it outside her room.
No-one had expected him to become a midwife - not his family, nor his friends, and least of all Dilan himself.
Growing up in Acocks Green, Birmingham, he hadn't really encountered many babies. His sister and his cousins were all older than him. There weren't any medical professionals in the family either - his parents, first-generation immigrants from Kenya's Indian community, had built up their own printing business from a shed in their back garden.
At school his best subjects were art and politics. He played basketball as well as rugby. He and his elder sister were the first generation of their family to attend university, and Dilan always assumed he would end up studying law, or maybe philosophy.
Then one day, in the lull between GCSEs and A-levels, 15-year-old Dilan was flicking through a pile of university prospectuses, and the page fell open on a midwifery course.
He cracked a joke to his mum. What if he studied that? How ridiculous would that be?
"Just carry on looking," Dilan's mother replied.
But he couldn't get the idea out of his head.
Midwifery is a demanding career. Hours are long and the 1% public sector pay cap has helped to ensure that wages remain low. Despite this, Dilan has no regrets.
But when he meets new people - potential partners, in particular - there's a question Dilan tries to put off as long as possible: "What do you do for a living?"
It's not that he doesn't like discussing it. It's that, once it's out there, it's a "massive elephant in the room". People want to talk about it.
Women who haven't yet experienced childbirth, especially. "A lot of women will often ask me: 'What is it like?' They are so acutely aware that this could be a massive element of their life."
By contrast, most men of his own age, Dilan says, haven't considered fatherhood in such terms: "They think: 'I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.'"
Training to be a midwife has helped Dilan grow up, he thinks. He's changed a lot since he was 18.
For all the hard work and anti-social hours, he feels deeply privileged. "This is an environment which I truly could have gone through life and not experienced," he says. "This is a world that I would have never really have seen."
Source: BBC
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