Childbirth is a moment that mothers and fathers will remember forever… and so will their doctors. OB-GYNs share the most ridiculous behavior they witnessed boyfriends and husbands engaging in the delivery room. Content has been edited for clarity.
What’s More Important? The Game Or Your Newborn Baby?
“I had admitted a pretty sick young woman with preeclampsia a couple of years ago. She was stable, so her husband left to get food and some things from home. A few hours later when I was called back to the room (the patient had progressed rapidly and was ready to deliver) I entered the room and it just reeked of fast food. The husband had gotten enough fast food for four people and had eaten it all himself. The room smelled like a fryer. The poor mom was on magnesium sulfate and was NPO (no food or drink), so the smell had just added to her nausea and caused her to vomit over and over. My nurse had asked the husband repeatedly to eat in the waiting room so as not to stimulate his wife’s nausea. To no avail…
Anyway, as delivery was imminent, we were trying to engage the husband in the childbirth process and to have him provide emotional support to his wife. He was busy trying to hook up a video game system (a PS4, I think) to the hospital’s wall-mounted TV. They are not really set up for easy access, as they are flush to the wall.
Anyway, the husband was sweaty and distracted all the way through the pushing, delivery, repair, and initial bonding time with his newborn. He was constantly muttering to himself about hooking up his game system and essentially ignoring his wife.
After about 45 minutes or so, when we were finishing up, he turned to say, ‘Good job, hon’ and then plop down to play some first-person shooter.
We had tried to engage and redirect him, but of course, our focus was on mom and baby. The young woman was so sweet and excited and just seemed demoralized by her husband’s behavior.
The nurse said he was like that all night. What a jerk. We had no evidence of abuse or neglect on his part and the couple seemed close otherwise, he just was an unhelpful guy and and probably should not have been there. This kind of behavior is not so rare, though.”
Boy Or Girl?
“In one of my rotations, I had an encounter with a father who wanted us to make her wife only reproducing male child by giving her some drugs.”
Baby Daddy Drama
“The boyfriend got in an altercation in one room on labor delivery because the girlfriend in labor found out he was also the baby daddy of the woman three doors down and ‘going outside to smoke’ was really just going to the other room (couldn’t smoke on the hospital campus so he’d be out 30 mins).
She threw him out after he said, ‘I hope my boy tears you up on the way out, hag.’
In the delivery room of the other woman, he had the audacity to tap me with his elbow like we were friends and say to me in front of her, ‘Sew her uptight for me, doc.’
And amazingly, I got in trouble for saying, ‘You’re gross, don’t touch or talk to me.'”
C-Section Scar
“The boyfriend complimented my surgical ability, stating that he had been to many strip clubs, and he had never seen such a beautiful C-section scar on his partner.”
No Tobacco Policy
“Night shift L&D nurse. Our hospital has a no tobacco policy, visiting hours are 10a-8p, and security has to permit visitors into the building after 8 p.m. So mean ol’ nurses like me have to deliver the news that dads have free will to leave smoke but won’t necessarily be let back in, even though they’ve been in and out to smoke all day during visiting hours.
Listen, I think the rule is dumb, but so are cigarettes, so whatever. I’m just the messenger.
Had a patient who was getting an epidural that she was extremely nervous about, and the dad not only refused to hold her hand but said ‘I gotta get out of this room. That needle is scary.’
Okay, fine I’d rather you leave the room than pass out. But then, literally, as the CRNA was working to get the epidural placed (sterile field set up, giant needle actively in spine), Dad from behind the curtain shouts, ‘Babe! What is your credit card number?? I’m ordering pizza.’
He then came around the curtain while I was doing the epidural hug, and he tried to go around to where the CRNA was set up because her wallet was in the closet in that area. I told him to stay back from the sterile table, so my patient then proceeded to tell him her credit card info out loud in a room of strangers while in labor and getting an epidural. And she had been on clear liquids all day, but the prick was asking for HER money to order HIMSELF a pizza.
The same guy also told me that I wasn’t allowed to run a urine drug screen on his girlfriend (standard protocol at my hospital) because, and I quote, ‘We don’t do drugs!’
The dude made me pretty nervous, and while normally it doesn’t bother me to tell people about our smoking rules, I had another nurse come in with me after he told me he needed to smoke.
Then, right before we moved the patient and baby to the postpartum unit after delivery, he got us AGAIN. He accused us of sexism because our policy doesn’t allow anyone (staff included) to carry babies in the halls. He wanted to carry the baby to their postpartum room. The baby had to either be in the rolling bassinet or carried by mom (or I guess dad if they cared that much) in a wheelchair. That actually almost got really ugly, but we deescalated it, thankfully.”
“But First, Let Me Take A Selfie”
“Dad was busy taking selfies to post on IG that he was having a baby. While his wife was on the other side of the room giving birth.
When asked if he wanted to help, he declined and said, ‘She got it.'”
“HE BEGGED ME FOR A KID”
“I was pregnant with my first and only child– my ex-husband was an embarrassment. During the labor and delivery class, he was on his phone most of the time to the point I fell down when I was supposed to be balancing on a ball.
When asked how he felt about the baby he stated, ‘I’m not making a big deal out of it,’ shrugged, and went back to playing on his phone.
The other couples in the class came up to me during the break to ask if I was doing okay and even the instructor voiced her concern with me privately.
I had to have an emergency C-section and he just fell asleep. The nurse woke him up by screaming at him that I was going into the operating room. He didn’t want to hold our son, he didn’t want to change diapers, he would scream at our two day old son for crying and get mad at me for not ‘getting up and doing anything.’
The nurses kicked him out and three of them gave me names for divorce lawyers, one of which I eventually used.
The kicker: my ex BEGGED me for a kid because all he wanted was ‘to be a dad.’ I was on the fence about having kids. Two years before my son was born he told my mom that he was going to divorce me if we didn’t have a child.”