I wish I had a dollar for every
I-delivered-my-baby-on-the-bathroom-floor story I've heard. Well, maybe
a thousand dollars. I guess there haven't been that many. But here's
another one! Poor Jet Malong of Bath, England had to deliver his wife's baby
(on the bathroom floor) because medical workers failed to respond to
the pager the couple had been given to contact the birthing center when
labor started. But things happened quickly, the medics never came, and
Mr. Malong had to step up along with their four-year-old son (who has
an awesome story to tell in preschool now!).
All this would be
not really a story except that because of cultural preferences, Mr.
Malong had had little to do with the pregnancy. In the Phillipines
where he is from, he says that men rarely even attend a birth (let
alone deliver their own babies!) "out of respect to the woman". Okay.
The guy knows his job, which in his mind is to stay out of the way. He
must have been freaking out, then! The couple is urging parents to
rethink the whole home-birth option, which was encouraged to them
because of a shortage in midwives. As a home-birth proponent myself, I
hope that women who are low-risk do continue to consider the home birth
option. But that's just me.
But what I really want to know is,
why the bathroom floor? Me, I think I would opt for the kitchen:
it's bigger and has snacks.
