Coping with fatherhood blues

Studies from the National University of Singapore (NUS) highlight changing expectations of new fathers and offer recommendations.

Singapore, 27 July 2019 – Sleepless nights, changing diapers and burping babies.

The role of newly minted fathers has become more demanding as Singapore’s society evolves, with healthcare professionals and policymakers urged to provide more support to help shake off postnatal paternal blues, NUS studies showed.

Research led by Dr Shefaly Shorey from the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, part of the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, highlighted key challenges faced by fathers – society beliefs, leave policies, inadequate information and training by healthcare professionals whose focus is still on mothers, and a lack of emotional support by family and friends.

Hence, researchers propose more paternity leave, better access to perinatal information and setting up peer groups for fathers to help them cope better with the angst of parenthood.

“There has been a lot of studies and literature done on mothers, but people forget that with changing society norms, fathers are also increasingly involved in taking care of their newborns,” said Dr Shorey, Assistant Professor at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies.

“Our series of papers aim to plug the shortage of documentation on paternal involvement during infancy based on the unique Asian context of Singapore,” she said.

The method

Dr Shorey led the series of studies funded by the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Social and Family Research Fund. The studies were conducted with a two-prong, or mixed-method, approach, by including a series of quantitative surveys and in-depth qualitative interviews.

The data for the quantitative surveys were collected from 201 fathers aged 21 to 52 at a public hospital in Singapore from May 2016 to December 2017.

A trend of factors related to paternal involvement in infant care was observed across four time points: the wife’s hospital discharge, then a month, three months and six months postpartum.

The in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 50 fathers aged 22 to 50 at one week and six months postpartum. More than 60% of the fathers were of Chinese race, with the rest Malays and Indians. More than half had university degrees.

NUS researchers said their studies were based on a multi-ethnic Asian setting as most documentation in the field were focused on the Western countries.

In Asian economies such as Singapore, as women are increasingly doing their part in bringing home the bacon, fathers are now expected to be more involved in bringing up the baby.

The paper “Factors influencing paternal involvement during infancy: A prospective longitudinal study” showed that Singaporeans were generally more involved in infant care duties and that could be due to more dual-income families in which the women also work.

Hence, there should be more focus on supporting men for greater involvement in postnatal baby care.

The observations

During their studies, NUS researchers observed that due to general Asian norms, there was more comprehensive support to the mother from the wider family, reducing the scope for the father to develop a caring role.

Mothers are also accorded up to 16 weeks of maternity leave, while fathers are entitled to two weeks of paternity leave. (Under the shared parental leave policy, mothers are able to share up to four weeks of maternity leave with fathers. Both maternity and paternity leave can be taken within the first 12 months of the child’s birth.)

Emotional support is currently one-way inclining towards the mother and more often than not, little useful feedback is given to the father on how he is coping. The fact is, when a new baby arrives, the couple needs to support each other at times of intense stress and anxiety, especially in the initial month or two, so emotional support should go both ways.

The studies also showed that fathers who were involved during infant birth and in the early days after it were more likely to be involved in the postpartum period, which can be stressful for first-time and experienced fathers.

However, healthcare support and training at hospitals during the perinatal period, or shortly after the birth of the baby, are mainly focused on mothers and infants, when fathers highlighted their need for sound advice on the basics of baby care such as nutrition and developmental milestones.

In the longer term, the main issue that emerged at six months postpartum was sexual and emotional needs of fathers as mothers remained focused on the babies, according to the paper “Paternal involvement of Singaporean fathers within six months postpartum: A follow-up qualitative study”.

Hence, healthcare professionals should also be more sensitive in providing support suiting the father’s needs at different points in time across the perinatal period and based on relevant cultural contexts. This could come in the form of follow-ups in the longer term and online educational resources.

Family and friends also need to extend their support and baby care experience to fathers. Fathers who are keen to be involved often face obstacles among the closest people due to maternal gatekeeping and a lack of proper advice. Experienced fathers face an extra hurdle of assimilating older children with the newborn.

Apart from professionals and family, non-profit organisations could offer valuable peer support and advice on fatherhood.

“Fathers need to feel that they play a key role to infant care and are not just a sidekick,” Dr Shorey said.