Our 22-month-old daughter woke at 4am screaming with a nose full of snot. It was not me lying on the floor next to her cot, stroking her back trying to get her back to sleep. Nor was it me groping around in the dark for the bottle of Calpol (and then smashing it spectacularly in the sink, up the wall and onto the bathroom mirror) and administering the dregs of what remained in the near pitch black. It was my husband, her Dadda.
This was meant to be my “lie-in” day until 6am, having worked the last two mornings at the Today programme, which means a 3.20am alarm.
Needless to say, the lie-in didn’t happen. But I was mightily grateful that my husband did his level best to see if it still could.
We have been a team since we became parents in 2018. And long before. We both entered parenthood equally clueless but equally hopeful. The learning curve has been steep, but thankfully, we both have fallen head over heels for our two children. When I think back to what we both didn’t know was ahead, I am grateful – and shocked.
Reading an important new study in the British Medical Journal this week, I was reminded of how, after our first child was born, one harried midwife did not help my husband in any way or teach him how to change the nappy of a screaming newborn as his wife lay splayed out post a C-section that had ushered in some nasty post-op complications.
While in some ways it was good she expected him to know what to do, he was utterly left out and ignored, as he had been in much of the run-up to becoming a parent. He was also very distressed at how his perfectly healthy wife now seemed quite broken. That’s another experience for new fathers which is never acknowledged
This eye-catching research by academics at Newcastle University has called for clinical guidelines to be developed to give mental health support to expectant fathers in the run-up to and shortly after becoming dads. This is a very good idea and an area which needs recognition. Many new fathers reported being “physically and emotionally tested to breaking point”. Just because women’s perinatal and postnatal care is still left wanting, that doesn’t mean we should not be ambitious enough to address new dads grappling their new lives too.
The researchers pulled on interviews, focus groups and surveys across the UK, Europe, Asia and the Middle East with more than a 1,000 men. Some had no issues but most did, saying they “often felt ill-prepared for the exhaustion and new responsibilities” leaving them little time for intimacy and quality experiences with their partner, which strained their relationship. They also reported feeling left out of the mother-child relationship and ill-equipped to support them through the minefield that can be breastfeeding.
That last point made me think back to a memorable interview in these pages from earlier in the week, in which comedian Russell Kane made the mind-boggling but inspirational revelation that he and his partner are still at it five times a week, despite being parents to an eight year old.
Crucially, he also said men want both their wives and children, and don’t want to be in the spare room eating a Pot Noodle and masturbating. That might sound like heaven to some, but he makes a valid point about how men can suddenly feel alone and atomised from the person they love when babies come along.
The academics conclude: “By addressing fathers’ wellbeing concerns and challenges during the transition to fatherhood through the development of clinical guidelines on the management of paternal perinatal mental health, as well as effective practitioner/organisational engagement and inclusion of fathers, may assist in removing stigma and gender expectations that society still follows.”
They add: “It is clear that fathers require equal emotional and practical support to mothers during this period, and therefore it is important that future tailored support is provided and that fathers are not considered a ‘forgotten entity’.”
Amen.
We are ever so slowly starting to wake up to matrescence and patrescence – the complex processes of becoming a mother and father – and what those changes mean in terms of the support needed and how we feel about ourselves. When a baby is born, so is a mother and often a father. The author Lucy Jones is doing vital work in this area, but while research is still developing in proving how our brains change in motherhood, even less has been done on fatherhood.
One groundbreaking study that Jones writes about from 2020 did look at the brains of men before and after becoming dads. As she puts it: “They discovered that having a baby actually changes a father’s brain anatomy. First-time fathers showed a significant reduction in cortical volume and thickness – an area of the brain associated with empathy, attention and visual processing. The higher the volume reduction, the stronger the father’s brain responds to pictures of his baby. Reduction might sound like a negative effect, but researchers theorise that it means the brain actually becomes more streamlined or fine-tuned to do what it needs to do: care for an infant.”
Other studies show that those biological changes, so called “dad brain”, come with risks for their mental health.
New mothers really need dads as equal partners, if that is how they come to parenthood. We also have to recognise their journey to becoming parents is different, and then changes again once the baby is here. They have vulnerabilities too and they are experiencing their own biological changes.
Even just letting men know that it can take much longer to bond with their baby, and that’s OK, is a step forward in normalising tricky aspects of a new experience. This is also key for same-sex partnerships where one has either carried or is the primary carer while the other earns. But it’s not enough.
We need a systemic overhaul: to open up the classes, the appointments and postnatal structures – the few we have – to fathers too. We need those specialists and those who care about the birthing of new parents to let dads in. They’re ready, and they deserve our love and care too.
Watching
Martha on Netflix. I thought I knew about Martha Stewart. I am not sure I cared to know more. But my god, I am happy I idly flicked on this documentary. Unlike so many pandering biographical pieces, this one does not pull any punches. I’m ready to watch it all over again. Plus the subject, who likes control over absolutely everything, doesn’t love it. Intrigued much? You should be.
Listening to
Shattered, the adaption of Hanif Kureishi’s new book for Radio 4 on BBC Sounds. It is read exquisitely by Art Malik. This darkly comic and moving memoir tells the story of the author’s fall that left him paralysed. Empathy for such a shocking turn of events, as his precise writing attests, is very difficult, even for those who love you the most and suddenly become carers. This account took me straight to his bedside and made me see what life was like for someone grappling to survive the unthinkable. Humbling, moving and also amazingly funny.
Reading
The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank. I had to order this especially from the local bookshop. I have had it on a list since the author and journalist Hadley Freeman put it in her top five reads. Covering 20 years of a woman’s life and her relationships, I am only just starting, but it’s what I need at this time of the year: a book that can be a friend and totally engrossing.
Emma Barnett presents BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme
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