Leave the men at home.
Ok, hear me out. I know I named this post ‘Leave the men at home’ - what can I say, it’s eye catching - but I’m actually not about excluding men entirely from the postpartum period. What kind of feminist would I be if I didn’t ask men to pay attention to and show up for birthing women?! But I remember when I birthed my first baby. I hadn’t discovered the world of postpartum support yet so it was far from an empowering experience. We had an onslaught of visitors, overstepping in-laws, a shortage of nourishing foods, and if I had my time over I would do it so differently, including asking our male friends to stay home.
Physically, I was an absolute mess. We had one bathroom and I bled heavily for the full six weeks. I’d had an episiotomy so there were ice packs getting shoved on top of bloody pads and for a couple of days I didn’t really want to move. I had no idea what afterpains were until they happened (ow!) and my daughter fed so ferociously and frequently (and with a mild tongue tie!) that my nipples very quickly became cracked and sore. It was not the time to be welcoming visitors, yet there they were.
My own mother hadn’t even seen my breasts before yet all of a sudden I was learning to breastfeed in front of uncles, my father-in-law and my friends’ boyfriends! People would say “oh don’t worry about us, we’ve seen it all” as I tried to segregate baby and myself to another room for breastfeeding. I used to think to myself, “no you haven’t, you haven’t seen my breasts. I would know!”
Now that I work as a postpartum doula, I see how delicate this time is for mother and baby. And how delicate newborn mothers are. They need to be held with kid-gloves, spoken to in soft tones, cuddled with only familiar arms.
Learning to breastfeed is hindered by having too many visitors and distractions.
Inside the postpartum bubble, mothers should feel safe to share their birth story in all its glorious and sometimes gruesome detail. Those entering her space must be the people who she can talk to about her 2nd degree tear and sore nipples. They should be ready to find her some fresh undies if her pad leaks. They should be in awe of her and what she has just done, knowing on a deep level what it is to labour and birth.
Sometimes we have men in our lives who are close and trusted, who we would happily mention our sore boobs to and who wouldn’t grimace as we shared in minute detail how it felt when baby’s head was crowning for 45 minutes. But I’d hazard a guess that these men are the exception. For the most part, birth and postpartum is sacred women’s business.
If you think about it, how badly does your hubby/boyfriend actually want to meet your friend’s new baby anyway? Or listen to your friend’s birth story? Maybe he loves babies, maybe he’s all ears. But I’m estimating that he doesn’t care quite as much as you do. And that’s totally ok, in fact it’s preferable! Here’s why:
Ina May Gaskin’s ‘sphincter law,’ although better understood as a metaphor than a medical term, explains how women’s labouring can be affected by feelings of threat when unknown males enter the birthing space.
Women are at their most vulnerable when they labour and during recovery. Their bodies are hardwired to detect threat at the primal level - 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙡. To women's bodies, men could be perceived as a threat. During labour the presence of men other than baby’s father, is thought to have potential to impact a woman’s dilation and progress (see Ina May Gaskin’s books for more ideas on this topic). A woman’s body may sense that it is no longer in a safe space to birth and be taken over by flight or fight hormones. I argue something similar can happen during recovery too.
Oxytocin is what we call the love hormone. But it’s actually a stress hormone. When mother feels safe, it’s giving her all those gooey love feelings. When mother feels unsafe, it’s turning her threat radar up and she’s going to focus on protection of her baby over love. From an evolutionary perspective, unfamiliar adult males could be a perceived threat. If a new mother is to fully immerse herself in the newborn bubble, then she needs her threat radar down. She needs to feel safe and comfortable.
Until mothers feel confident in their healing body, confident in their breastfeeding, and have been thoroughly nurtured through this transition by wise women, then I think the majority of men can wait. And because of that, I’m glad most men aren’t itching to hear how long skin to skin was or if baby got to do a breast crawl. I wonder how many male partners come along to meet the new baby solely out of obligation anyway.
But as I said earlier, I’m not about pushing men so far out of the picture that they wipe their hands clean of the whole thing. There are plenty of ways men can be involved without having them in the personal space of mother and baby. Men cook, men clean, men garden, men shop. And all of these are activities that greatly help new mothers. Meal drop-offs, watering the garden, walking the dog, playing with the older children…these are infinitely better uses of men’s time than sitting idly next to their wives giving themselves a neck sprain trying not to make eye contact with the new mother’s nipple!
Another incredibly valuable role for male friends/family of birthing women is to support the new dad - call him and listen to his story of becoming a dad. It’s an entirely different story to his partner’s and he may be itching to tell it. Or he may like to ask what the score was on last night’s sportsball game without being judged for caring! Either way, new dads need support too, and lord knows their birthing partners will feel better knowing someone is there for this.
Birth and postpartum is sacred women’s business. It takes the whole village of course, but let’s allow mothers the ultimate sense of safety and comfort they deserve and need, and think twice before dragging hubby along to those early postpartum visits.
