Someone wrote:
>Michel Odent, the French male obstetrician who has decided there
>shouldn't be male obstetricians, shows a slide of a woman sitting
>cross-legged right after birth, newborn cradled in her arms, looking
>glowingly up at her partner.  His comment:  "She should be looking at
>the baby."

I find this comment VERY interesting.  If you watch films of natural
childbirth (I'm thinking here specifically of "Gentle Birth Choices" and the
new Suzanne Arms video) and you watch very carefully, many mothers do NOT
look at their baby immediately after birth.  In fact, the primary expression
on their faces seems to be "Hallaluyeah, it's over, and I'm still alive"
rather than "Oh look, here's the baby."  They look at the midwife, or their
partner, or even just off into space, or close their eyes.  Everyone else
may be focused on the baby -- the mothers seem not to be, not right at
first.  And in Brigitte Jordan's book "Birth in Four Cultures" she talks at
some length about how among the Mayan women of the Yucatan pennisula, it is
the delivery of the placenta which is the highlight of the birth -- not the
delivery of the baby.  Everyone holds their breath and anxiously awaits the
delivery of the placenta -- ignoring the baby at first -- and then they all
inspect the placenta, and only once the placenta has successfully come out
and seems to be complete, THEN they turn their attention to the baby.
Whereas in the US, most people focus on the baby and pay no attention to the
delivery of the placenta -- many parents never even see the placenta in US
hospital births, and don't want to see it, and place no significance on it.
In watching "Baby Story" on the Learning Channel, which mostly shows highly
interventionist US hospital births, women often do not focus on the baby at
first, either.

I guess I'm just saying that WHO the mother looks at after the baby is born
may depend a lot on her culture and her individual experiences, and I don't
think there is any evidence to support the idea that she "should" be looking
at the baby rather than at her partner.

Kathy Dettwyler

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