Having just completed the 5 weeks of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in my Trainee Intern year, my logbook records my attendance at 10 deliveries—only 1 was a normal vaginal delivery. During my week on delivery suite in my fifth year, I logged 15 deliveries—3 were normal vaginal deliveries.

At an early morning caesarean section (not so many weeks ago), the on-call anaesthetist tried to cheer me up, ‘You’ve been reading too many history books’, he smirked, ‘babies don’t come out the vagina any more’. I wasn’t laughing; I’d spent the last 7 hours in and out of that delivery room waiting on twins to be born the ‘old-fashioned’ way; the previous hour had been spent palpating contractions and encouraging the mother to push against her epidural-addled perineum.

My attendance at this labour was aided by the fact that, as a high-risk pregnancy, it was supervised by the obstetrician. I got the feeling that the independent midwife wasn’t exactly keen on the idea (of me being present), but once she realised I was in it for the long haul, was not just in it for the action, was knowledgeable, had a decent level of skill, and was generally useful, she warmed to my presence.

My attempts to attend other labours were wholly unsuccessful; the few independent midwives whom I approached said they would ask the mothers, but that they weren’t hopeful. Maybe the families genuinely didn’t want me to attend, maybe it was the defeatist attitude with which the midwives approached the situation, maybe it was the way I was described (perhaps as a ‘medical student’ who wanted to ‘watch’), but I was never invited to a primary care delivery. Having never otherwise been turned away by a patient, the reasons why remain a mystery.

I wish I knew why midwives are so discouraging when medical students try to attend normal vaginal deliveries, because I’m left with the horrible sense that the only sin I have committed is to have signed up for the wrong profession. After all, I’m female, proactive, have good knowledge, support minimal intervention, am staunchly pro-breastfeeding, support ‘baby-friendly’ hospitals, and am happy to fetch and carry if that is the way I can be of most use.

Whatever the concerns of midwives, I suspect they will be more concerned at this—having completed all of the obstetrics training I will receive at medical school, I, a potential rural doctor, would be more comfortable delivering a baby by caesarean than by vagina.

If midwives as a collective are worried about the medicalisation of the natural process of pregnancy and childbirth, they should be very concerned that a generation of doctors who have seen no other way are about to graduate and begin filling hospitals and general practices across the country.