As a maternity professional, engaging with fathers is not just about ‘being nice to dads’. It is a key weapon in your armoury for providing a high quality service for mums, and meeting your targets around smoking, breastfeeding and mental health.

A compelling body of evidence demonstrates the interdependence of mothers’ and fathers’ behaviour in these and other areas. The fact is, to really help mothers succeed in making healthy choices, you need also to address fathers’ beliefs and behaviour.

That’s why the Fatherhood Institute has developed a free online information package for midwives, health visitors and other health professionals, to help you access what you need to know about fathers and fatherhood.

Free online maternity resources

Our free online information package includes:

• A FREE e-newsletter service, giving you easy access to loads of information to help you make the most of fatherhood in your work, including the latest news on changes in government policies; details on the latest research about fathers and fatherhood; book reviews; and information about useful resources.

Note: You can register for our extremely popular Network Newsletter (click here for more details and to see previous editions) AND/OR a special maternity e-newsletter focusing particularly on maternity-related issues, to be launched soon. To register to receive either or both e-newsletters, fill in your details here.

• A Fatherhood Institute briefing paper, The Dad Deficit: The Missing Piece in the Maternity Jigsaw, and Maternal and Infant Health in the Perinatal Period: The Father’s Role, the literature review on which it was based.
• A practical guide to making your practice more father-inclusive, written specifically for midwives and other maternity professionals. INCLUDING NEW FATHERS: a guide for maternity professionals is designed to help you develop a more responsive approach to fathers – and, through this, to the whole family. It is available as a FREE download or you can buy hard copy versions for just £4.95 each. For more details click here.
• An ongoing and frequently updated series of FREE research summaries on fathers and their impact on key areas of their children’s lives – and on the lives of their children’s mothers. For more details click here.
• A FREE module for midwifery training. FAMILY- FRIENDLY PRACTICE: Including fathers is a beautifully illustrated and clearly laid out Midwifery Module for pre-registration training with special reference to YOUNG FATHERS; but it will also inform midwife educators working in post-registration training. For more details click here.

You will also find a host of useful information in the Maternity Services section of our website.

Cards to hand out to fathers

Credit card-sized Dad cards to hand out to fathers are available to buy now from Dad Info. For more information click here.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about the Institute and the work we do – or if there are issues you would like to tell us about – please contact us via mail@fatherhoodinstitute.org or on 0845 634 1328.