MaternityInformation for midwives, paediatricians, obstetricians and other professionals working in the maternity services: helping expectant fathers to support their pregnant partners, and supporting new fathers in the transition to parenthood.
FI research » Maternity
Policy » Maternity
Policy » Maternity
Bringing Baby Home, our review of empirical evidence about UK fathers and fatherhood in the first postnatal year, explores who dads are; what they do as caregivers, and what influences this; what impact they have (on children and mothers); and how services engage with them.
Practice » Maternity
Blog » Maternity
Blog » Maternity
Photo: Raul Lieberwirth under Creative Commons license
The quality of
the relationship between parents – and specifically how they communicate and
relate to each other – has a significant influence on effective parenting, and on
children’s long-term mental health and future life chances.
As evidence continues to emerge about the impact of fathers’ exclusion from maternity services since the start of the pandemic – and of continuing ‘dad bans’ in some parts of the UK – we are boosting the help we offer practitioners to improve their remote father-engagement.
FI research » Maternity
The Perinatal Dad is a report by the Fatherhood Institute’s Head of Training, Jeszemma Howl, drawing on research she undertook – thanks to a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship – with the aim of exploring and examining the very best offer to families, that engages the father in the perinatal period and supports women to breastfeed for as they want to.
FI research » Maternity
Practice » Maternity
Blog » Maternity
Practice » Maternity
Blog » Maternity
“You are the first person who has ever wanted to know what actually happened, what I went through. No one has ever asked me before….no one has ever bothered with me – you are the first person that has ever sat down and asked me my story.”Quote from a man convicted of killing a baby, interviewed as part of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s review of non-accidental injury of infants by male caregivers, ‘The Myth of Invisible Men’
The UK’s Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s in-depth and hard-hitting report, The Myth of Invisible Men, published today (16 September 2021) shines a light on the rare but tragic phenomenon of fathers and father-figures who kill or injure babies (not by accident).
Policy » Maternity
When Baz Price (pictured above) and his wife Laura decided that he should take shared parental leave to look after their baby when she arrived, they discovered that his employer, Powys County Council, only enhanced SPL to the level of statutory maternity pay (currently £151.97 or 90% of average weekly earnings – whichever is lower).