The Trouble With Women

Who would have thought that the story of how fathers managed to get into delivery suites is documented in a book called “The Trouble With Women”. The book is the story of NZ’s Parent Centres put together by Mary Dobbie. As a dad who recently had the opportunity to exercise the right to be present during my son’s birth I am grateful for the numerous people who fought bureaucracy and ignorance so that fathers could be present during labour. No doubt this story is replicated the world over with many unsung heroes paving the way. In Wellington where I live, it wasn’t until 1972 that fathers were finally allowed in the delivery suites.

In New Zealand the Parent Centres played a vital role in this battle as they provided venues for public meetings following a formal ruling by the Wellington Hospital Board in 1961 to exclude fathers from the delivery suite. Based on their own frustrations with the system, two fathers, Dr Jim Ritchie and Russell Feist campaigned against this decision and called a public meeting of protest. Dr Ritchie wrote a number of articles on the subject in popular newspapers at the time. How he expressed his position on the matter in 1964 is as relevant as ever:

“I believe that to be with one’s wife at the moment at which the family begins, when the child is born, unites husband and wife with a bond which will link them together and to their children as no other experience can.”

“In may be a male view, but to me, as I have stood alongside my wife through the experience of childbirth, one does experience tremendous awe and wonder and a sense of the beauty of well-conducted labour. Faith is very much a part of this process; the faith of the woman in those who surround her in the experience of childbirth, especially in the skills of the obstetric team and in the support of her husband; faith in herself and in her body and in the process by which she will produce another human individual”

By 1964 Ritchie and Feist with support from the Parent Centre had put together a submission to the Wellington Hospital Board to formally request that the ruling be revoked. However the Board’s position on this issue remained firmly against allowing fathers to be present at births. In the following years, both fathers kept campaigning and writing for their cause and public opinion soon showed overwhelming support. But it still took 8 long years until 1972 when the Board finally decided to allow fathers to remain with their partners throughout labour!

So thank you Jim Ritchie, thank you Russell Feist and thank you Parents Centre, and thank you everyone else who helped make this happen. It is great to see that a few individuals back in the 60s already had a vision for bringing parenting into the 21st century!

-Stef