AIMS This paper is a report on a study analysing the effect of the umbilical cord cutting experience on fathers' emotional involvement with their infants. BACKGROUND Participation in childbirth offers an opportunity for father and mother to share the childbirth experience, so it is vital that midwives improve the fathers' participation in this event. DESIGN A quasi-experimental study with a...

Although humans are considered unusual among mammals for the intensity of care that fathers often provide offspring, little is known about the hormonal architecture regulating human paternal investment. Prolactin has important reproductive functions in both female and male mammals and other taxa, making it a candidate regulator of human paternal behavior. Notably, prolactin is higher during per...

One possible mechanism for the familial transmission of depression is through its negative effects on parenting and the parent-child relationship. Although previous research indicates that depression is associated with parenting impairment for mothers, no quantitative synthesis of the empirical literature on the effects of paternal depression on fathers' parenting has been conducted. The presen...

Studies about fathers and child neglect are scarce. Current research, which tends to focus on mothers, does not allow to fully understand the influence of all parental figures on child protection. This research aims to compare socio-demographic characteristics and personal problems of mothers to those of fathers in 1266 neglecting families. The data, from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reporte...

Multiple lines of research indicate that fathers often treat boys and girls differently in ways that impact child outcomes. The complex picture that has emerged, however, is obscured by methodological challenges inherent to the study of parental caregiving, and no studies to date have examined the possibility that gender differences in observed real-world paternal behavior are related to differ...

The transition to parenthood has been associated with declines in testosterone among partnered fathers, which may reflect males' motivation to invest in the family. Moreover, preliminary evidence has found that couples show correlations in hormone levels across pregnancy that may also be linked to fathers' preparation for parenthood. The current study used repeated-measures sampling of testoste...

In contrast to the large body of research on mothers, there has been little research on fathers of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Moreover, the few studies that have examined fathers included families of young children. Little is known about the experiences or well-being of fathers of grown children with an ASD. Yet, ASD is a lifelong condition and parents often continue to live...

OBJECTIVE To study stress in fathers of preterm infants admitted in a neonatal intensive care unit. METHODS Questionnaire-based study. Questionnaire included domains on infants health, maternal illness, staff behavior, parental role, home affairs and finances. Eligible fathers were repeatedly interviewed on day 7 (n=80), day 17 (n=59) and day 27 (n=28). Raw and standardized stress scores were...

1. The prevalence of postnatal depression in Hong Kong Chinese fathers was 4.9%. 2. Postnatal depression in fathers was closely linked with postnatal depression in mothers. 3. Risk factors differed between fathers and mothers. Fathers who had life events, stress, worries over unemployment, poor marital relationships, low social support, and peiyue care were more likely to have postnatal depress...

The twentieth century has been characterized by four important social trends that have fundamentally changed the social cultural context in which children develop: women's increased labor force participation, increased absence of nonresidential fathers in the lives of their children, increased involvement of fathers in intact families, and increased cultural diversity in the U.S.. In this essay...