Unwanted Interlopers During Childbirth

I came across an article that really tried to drive home the idea that extended family members don't have a "right" to attend a relative's birth.

There was even a quote from an "expert:" She should not feel obligated to have any other person, apart from the father, present at the birth.

This immediately brought up feelings that I thought were long dealt with and buried. Years ago I was forced to deal with something similar. Not only was I threatened with being "dragged to the hospital in handcuffs," if I pursued a home birth, I would be given no choice about the person doing the threatening being present when I gave birth. He would be there, and he would make all the decisions.

To their credit, the hospitals I contacted were sympathetic, but he was my husband, after all. There wasn't much they believed they could do.

I finally found a lawyer who helped me bar him from the hospital should I give birth there. So then he decided home birth was fine, as long as he could be present for the birth. Not having much other choice, I felt forced to agree.

Close to my due date, my midwives asked me where I wanted him to be while I was in labor. I said the first thing that popped into my mind - "Albuquerque." I hated laboring with him there. I found tasks for him to do to get him away from me as much as possible.

Being present at a birth is a privilege, not a right. It doesn't matter if you are the husband, the grandmother, or the older kid's scout leader. Anyone present at a birth is either a paid consultant or there at the mother's invitation.

Why on earth should a laboring woman be "obligated" to have a person present whom she would rather have anywhere else but with her?

There was even a court case about this very issue. In   Plotnick v DeLuccia, Judge Sohail Mohammed ruled that fathers do not have the right to force themselves into a delivery room if the mother refuses access.

I support the right of ALL mothers to choose where and with whom to give birth. And to choose whom to exclude. No exceptions.