I’m thinking this man anticipated that he would have to deliver his child, not that he had necessarily wanted to deliver the baby.
“Four hours later, when Jo went into sudden labour and the couple was told by hospital staff that no midwife was available, he used his new-found knowledge.”
It seems that they had tried to obtain trained medical care for her at some point but were told that no one was available. It is beyond me why a hospital would not have any midwifery staff available to handle even uncomplicated deliveries, since babies haven’t yet learned about normal business hours. However this did occur in the UK, land of socialized medicine. It very well may be that, when his wife started feeling contractions, he began his research after anticipating a situation and wanting to be prepared for it.
That all being said, this man, as well as his wife and baby, are very lucky that the delivery went smoothly. An uncomplicated delivery is not hard to perform, as a baby in the proper position doesn’t need much help. In truth, the hardest thing about most deliveries is making sure the mother’s perineum doesn’t tear, since that actually is affected by the performance of the person doing the delivery. However, there is no way to learn how to handle the numerous problems that can occur during delivery after watching YouTube for an hour.
The essence of this story isn’t the wonderfulness of home births. It is the failure of socialized medicine (coming soon to a maternity ward near you, if Barack Obama has his way) to provide people with even the most basic of medical care.
However this did occur in the UK, land of socialized medicine
the couple was told by hospital staff that no midwife was available
enough said