Abstract
Background: During the last decades, fathers have increasingly participated in prenatal care, birth preparation classes, and childbirth. However, comparably little is known about the prenatal emotional well-being of fathers, particularly content and extent of broader paternal concerns that may arise during pregnancy beyond those focusing on childbirth. Thus, the aims of this study were to investigate the manifestation of paternal pregnancy-related worries in a population-based sample and to identify relevant associated factors.Materials and Methods: As part of a longitudinal pregnancy cohort at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, N = 129 expectant fathers were assessed once during pregnancy. Pregnancy-related worries centering around medical procedures, childbirth, health of the baby, as well as socioeconomic aspects were assessed with the Cambridge Worry Scale (CWS). Additionally, paternal socioeconomic background and maternal obstetrical history, symptoms of generalized anxiety and depression, and level of hostility were investigated, as well as perceived social support. The cross-sectional data were analyzed based on multiple regression analyses.Results: The level of reported worries was overall low. Some fathers reported major worries for individual aspects like the health of a significant other (10.9%) and the baby (10.1%), as well as the current financial (6.2%) and employment situation (8.5%). Pregnancy-related worries were negatively associated with household income and positively associated with anxious and depressive symptoms and low perceived social support. Associations varied for specific pregnancy-related worries.Limitations: Due to the cross-sectional data examined in this study, a causal interpretation of the results is not possible. The sample was rather homogeneous regarding its socioeconomic background. More research needs to be done in larger, more heterogeneous samples.Conclusion: Though overall worries were rather low in this sample, specific major worries could be identified. Hence, addressing those fathers reporting major worries regarding specific aspects already in prenatal care might support their psychosocial adjustment. Fathers with little income, those with elevated levels of general anxious and depressive symptoms, and those with less social support reported higher pregnancy-related worries. Our results indicate the relevance of concerns beyond health- and birth-related aspects that could be relevant for fathers. Measurements developed specifically for expectant fathers are needed to properly capture their perspective already during pregnancy.
Highlights
Even though most parents perceive the transition to parenthood as a positive experience with excitement and joy, often negative feelings and insecurity are a substantial part of becoming a mother [1] or father [2, 3]
Even though fathers report interest in participating in prenatal care, birth preparation classes and delivery itself, they might feel that the focus is on their pregnant partner and the baby, giving themselves less space to find their own role, and to express distress or concerns in the context of pregnancy and childbirth [29,30,31,32]
It is important to better understand the manifestation of paternal concerns related to pregnancy and childbirth and their associated factors, which has rarely been focus in the literature so far
Summary
Even though most parents perceive the transition to parenthood as a positive experience with excitement and joy, often negative feelings and insecurity are a substantial part of becoming a mother [1] or father [2, 3]. Research on perinatal emotional adjustment has focused mainly on mothers, despite a societal shift in the perspective on fatherhood toward fathers being a more active caregiver for the child [7,8,9,10] Supporting this change in the understanding of paternal roles, previous studies indicate that active, supportive paternal caretaking is positively associated with the quality of the father–child relationship and child’s socioemotional [11,12,13,14,15] and cognitive development [16,17,18]. The aims of this study were to investigate the manifestation of paternal pregnancy-related worries in a population-based sample and to identify relevant associated factors
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