Abstract
ABSTRACT Purpose: The aim of this study is to describe new fathers’ expectations of and experiences with municipal postnatal healthcare services. Methods: A phenomenological reflective lifeworld research (RLR) approach has been used. Ten fathers were interviewed about their expectations of and experiences with municipal postnatal healthcare services, and the data were analysed to elucidate a meaning structure for the phenomenon. Results: The essential meaning of the phenomenon of fathers’ expectations of and experiences with municipal postnatal health care described as going blindly into the women’s world. The essential meaning is further explicated through its four constituents: not knowing what to ask for, feeling excluded, seeking safety for the family and longing for care. Conclusions: Entering the postnatal period with sparse knowledge about the child and family healthcare services available is difficult for the fathers who do not know what to ask for and what to expect. The fathers’ feel excluded by the public health nurse, and the postnatal health care is seen as a mother–baby–public health nurse triad. The feeling of exclusion and inequality might be avoided if public health nurses focused both on mothers’ and fathers’ individual follow-up needs in the postnatal period and on seeing the newborn baby and the parents as a family unit.
Highlights
Most high-income countries offer postnatal healthcare services for the families, both at the hospital of birth and in the municipalities where the families live
Not knowing what to expect from the public health nurse (PHN) and the CFHC is described as “going blindly”, and this makes it difficult to have any expectations in advance
Parenthood is seen as a joint project where both parents are important in caring for the newborn child. This stands in contrast to the manner in which the fathers perceive being met by PHN and CFHC
Summary
Most high-income countries offer postnatal healthcare services for the families, both at the hospital of birth and in the municipalities where the families live. Discharge from hospital for mother and child after birth (6–72 hours) is a growing trend in several coun tries, and this has been claimed to be a more familycentred approach in postnatal health care (Brown et al, 2009). Discharge is found to encourage the mothers and fathers to take responsibility which contributes towards bolstering their confidence in their parental role (Nilsson et al, 2015). Involvement in giving care after the birth has a positive influence on the fathers themselves and on their partners and on the child’s psychological, behavioural and social development and well-being (Plantin et al, 2011; Wells, 2016). Fewer than half of the world’s countries offer paid paternity leave on the birth of a child, and often this amounts to less than three weeks (Van der Gaag et al, 2019)
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