What is the role of the doctor in the delivery room?

Answer 1

There are a few answers to this. Easiest is that the father acts as a birthing coach. He helps his wife to focus, time her breathing, stick with her training, hold her hand, get yelled at... to work directly with her. It works best if whoever does this is someone very familiar to the mother, and also comforting to be around. Most of the time, this is the dad. It's also good for the dad. Earlier in our histories, when dads waited in waiting rooms, there was sort of a disconnect: one minute you were a husband and ZOT! the next you were a parent. It was odd in a way. Actually participating in the birth seems to help overcome the "now you aren't; now you are" waiting room effect and bind the family more closely. Also, as late as the 1950's, the psychology of applied medicine was that doctors were an elite group -- almost a different race -- that did something amazing and beyond the ken of lesser mortals. So doctors would often not give patients their diagnosis (and this was sometimes backed by law!). They'd make decisions for patients. And the process of delivering health care was more like an otherworldly passing of manna to the needy. I don't say this to criticize. This was just the times as they were. Nowadays, this paradigm really doesn't work. Back in the day, "the flu" was thought of as one disease -- now what we call the flu can be any of thousands of infections, if correctly diagnosed! The time required to take a really thorough history on a patient has increased to maybe quadruple or more. And ironically, being a doctor is usually a lot less profitable nowadays, so the time spent on histories grows shorter and shorter. The bottom line is that members of the family are -- more and more -- considered to be member of the health and support team for the patient. Good doctors want the family educated and on-board for medical issues. Families, if they're smart, will realize that even the best doctors have to consider their own practices, other patients and their own family in any decisions -- but the patient's family has (hopefully) only one focus. This means that, nowadays, the family of the patient delivers critical oversight -- something good doctors don't mind at all. So the other part of the dad in the delivery room is he's impartial observer and quality control officer, overseeing the medical staff. It's a positive manifestation of a new societal approach to medicine that can yield tremendous health benefits.

Answer 2

The doctor's job is to facilitate a safe delivery of a healthy newborn and mother.