Re: WHY - do this .....?
Some people love all that stuff Pats.
In the old days the husband made himself scarce when the baby was due to arrive, in my first case I was told by the women looking after the wife (she was upstairs in the front bedroom of the same house we're in now) to " Go on off to the pub with you, we're busy and you're gettin in the way", an hour and a half later the barman shouts out to a packed pub "Jimmy the apple has dropped, you're to go back to the house now".
It's all different now, no more house births and hubby or whoever is there in the hospital to hold her hand, ah how sweet it is.