‘The Husband, For Whom She Endures All This’: Dutch Men in Childbirth, 1900–1940

TL;DR

In early 20th-century Netherlands, fathers commonly attended childbirth, unlike in Anglo-Saxon countries, due to a cultural emphasis on family harmony.

Contribution

The paper challenges existing historiography by showing Dutch fathers' active role in childbirth during 1900–1940.

Findings

Dutch fathers were regularly present at childbirth, supported by doctors.

Childbirth was viewed as a family event requiring fathers' emotional involvement.

The Dutch model contrasts with Anglo-Saxon practices where fathers were typically absent.

Abstract

I argue that in the early twentieth-century Netherlands, fathers regularly attended the birth of their children, and that this attendance was generally accepted or even encouraged by doctors. My findings contrast with existing historiography on the Anglo-Saxon countries, where, at the time, fathers were usually not present at births. I explain this difference between the Netherlands and the Anglo-Saxon countries through the ideal of the harmonious family that permeated Dutch society at the time. I show how birth was seen as a family event, in which the father should be emotionally involved. Men had to manage this emotional involvement carefully: they had to display emotions without losing control of these emotions. My findings show that we need to study doctor-led births in order to fully understand the slow rise of hospital births in the Netherlands.