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When Karen Kollins delivered her first baby in November at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, her husband and her mother were at her side, just as she always knew they would be, coaching her through every contraction.

Another family member was there as well - unplanned, but most welcome: her 65-year-old dad.

Ms. Kollins had always figured her father would stay in the waiting room, coming to see her only after the baby was born. But when she was moved into a delivery room large enough to accommodate her husband and both parents, she didn't ask anyone to leave after the nurse announced that her daughter, Ruby Pearl Kollins Abramson, was about to make her big appearance.

"It was an intimate moment," Ms. Kollins says. "But an intimate moment you want to share with your family, not one you are embarrassed about."

Ms. Kollins, 32, is one of a growing number of women inviting their fathers to be present as the grandchildren are born - and in doing so, breaking one of the last taboos around birth. As pregnancy has evolved into an increasingly public experience, attitudes about labour and delivery have changed in stride. As a result, men who may not have been present at the birth of their own children are getting the opportunity to have that experience with their grandkids.

Adebayo Odueke, chief of obstetrics at Rouge Valley Health System's Ajax and Pickering hospital in Ontario, estimates he sees at least one or two grandfathers in the delivery room each month.

It was unheard of when he started working at the hospital 15 years ago.

"Grandfathers are coming in at insistence of their daughters," he says.

Carla Angelone Hayman wanted both her parents to be with her when she delivered her daughter Siena two years ago because her father, 67, had been relegated to the waiting room when she and her brother were born in Hamilton more than three decades ago.

"I felt like it was the greatest gift I could give him," says Ms. Angelone Hayman, a former health-care executive.

Her father, Frank Angelone, a Stoney Creek, Ont., real-estate agent, says he wasn't anxious during the delivery - in fact, it was Ms. Angelone Hayman's mother who had to leave for a few moments to collect herself.

"I stood beside Carla," Mr. Angelone says. "I tried to comfort her."

Both parents were again present at the birth of Ms. Angelone Hayman's son earlier this month in Boca Raton, Fla.

Ms. Kollins' father, Rick Kollins, remembers being told to go home and wait for a call from the hospital when Ms. Kollins' mother went into labour during the birth of their two sons, now ages 39 and 36.

He stayed in the delivery room for Karen's birth 32 years ago, but recalls being "on the sidelines."

"This time," he says of granddaughter Ruby's birth, "I was part of the team."

Mr. Kollins says he tried to make himself useful by lightening the mood with humour. The only downside, he says, was seeing his daughter in pain.

"I wasn't squeamish," he says. "But it was difficult to see Karen going through every contraction. I never imagined it would be so intense." When the doctors checked to see how much her cervix was dilated, Mr. Kollins left the room or discreetly sat down in an armchair and stuck his nose into a newspaper.

That there was an armchair in which Dad could sit reflects the evolution of the maternity ward. Wards constructed in the 1960s and 1970s had women labouring in one room, delivering in another and recuperating in a third space, separated from partners and families, says Sheena Mavis, birthing program co-ordinator at BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre.

As some hospitals renovated maternity wards, rooms were made bigger and doctors relaxed their attitudes about allowing families inside. Visiting hours were extended around the clock. The most recent innovations are hospital rooms that resemble bedrooms where women can labour, deliver and recover with as many family members as they want. Rouge Valley Health System will open 16 such rooms in the fall.

Mount Sinai Hospital is also building a new women's and infants' health space and is starting a study on how to make maternity rooms feel more "demedicalized," says Paul Bernstein, a Mount Sinai obstetrician.

Currently, some labour and delivery rooms at Mount Sinai are as small as 165 square feet. The average size of future rooms will be 320 to 350 square feet, with some as large as 370 square feet. Some will have whirlpool tubs where women can labour and all will be equipped with a television.

Amy Burke, 33, never imagined she would have a small army beside her when her daughter Halle was born last June in Toronto.

But Ms. Burke, a management consultant who describes herself as "not at all granola," says she was so focused on delivering her baby she barely noticed all the people in the room: both of her parents, their respective spouses, her sister and her in-laws, in addition to her husband.

"I just went with it," Ms. Burke says.

Halle was held by every member of her extended family within moments of her arrival.

"She was the first grandchild, and within minutes she was part of everyone. I know some people still view birth as icky and private, but for me it was the most beautiful thing in the world."