Male midwife Lee Wright 'fell in love' with his profession

Lee Wright said he hoped more men joined the profession

A man who has spent 30 years as a midwife says he feels "incredibly lucky" with his career and hopes more men join the profession.

Lee Wright, from Wolverhampton, said he was one of about 200 male midwives registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

He said he "fell in love" with midwifery during a 12-week placement.

It has led to "loads of memorable deliveries" and being an advisor on BBC One's Doctors drama series.

Mr Wright, now a midwifery lecturer at the school of nursing at the University of Wolverhampton, said he fell into the profession by accident after leaving school with no qualifications and an injury forcing him to quit the army.

He enjoyed his midwifery placement and decide to focus on that.

"It's interesting if you like people - you see people from every race, creed, colour, religion, economic social scale, at a critical point in their life," he said.

"It's generally a very positive event, although there are enough emergencies and interesting diseases to keep you interested.

"It's all-round a great career really."

Lee Wright said he has nearly always received a positive reaction from couples

He said he had nearly always received a positive reaction to his role, as the birth and intimate examinations are only a "tiny part" of what midwives do.

"Very occasionally I've had men who would prefer me not to look after their wives... that's been very few and far between," he said.

"I've worked all over the world. I've had a brief spell in Afghanistan and people from all sorts of different backgrounds really don't mind as long as they've got somebody they know they can trust, then they're perfectly happy with that."

One of his proudest moments, he said, was delivering three out of four children for the same couple in a farmhouse in Devon and is now godparent to some of them.

"I go back to my home town to see people that I delivered having children themselves and talking to their kids about when they were delivered... so that's incredibly good for me," he said.

Despite big changes in the workplace, he said male midwives were still very rare.

"It's something that men are not encouraged to get involved in many ways... we do want more men to become involved in childbirth because part of it is dealing with men just as it is dealing with women."