When I were nobbut a lass, there were many jokes, cartoons and comedy sketches involving birth.
In all these instances birth was depicted as something that took place behind closed doors whilst the husbands paced up and down in the corridor, awaitng the news.

By the time Ian was procreating men were allowed into the delivery room and 10 years later when I got round to it myself it was absolutely de-riguer to have ones partner present not only at the birth but at all the shenanigans leading up to it, general info from the district nurses about what would happen over the ensuing seven months of pregnancy and on into the early years of the babies life, hospital appointments, scans, ante-natal classes, maternity-home visits, the whole shoot and shebang.

When we compared notes, my contempories and I, there were some hilarious stories about men turning green, mistaking the umbilical cord for the penis -never quite worked that one out myself unless there are some men wandering about whose penises comprise two tubes twisted around one another and covered in transluscent skin, god I couldn't touch pasta spirals with tomato sauce for years after the birth of BBC - throwing up, getting high on the gas and air and falling asleep in the corner as they got bored with the waitng and moaning, and thus missing the whole thing anyway.

Now, of course, there are vast herds of friends, relatives and probably passing drunks just looking for somewhere to spend a warm hour or so, all armed with their mobile phones to photograph or video the event and forward it to their totally uninterested friends, well if they were interested they'd be there wouldn't they? or post up on YouTube.

And I imagine that never in their wildest misgivings did those avant garde obstetricians of the sixties and seventies think that at some point in the future one of those imminent fathers would not be there, awestruck, holding his partner's hand and breathing with her, but caressing the midwofe's neck and telling her she was cute, before making a lunge for her breasts.
He was, of course, evicted from the delivery room and I should imagine it will be a long time before he is allowed back into the marital bed.