About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 6. Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

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Objective: Substantial evidence documents the high prevalence of maternal postnatal depression (PND) and associated deleterious societal and health consequences, including the adverse impact on offspring development across the life span. However, the impact of maternal PND on fathers, particularly their involvement and parenting in the context of maternal depression, is less well understood. This is a significant gap as maternal PND has a profound effect on a woman’s psychological well-being and is also likely to affect fathers’ own mental health, their parenting behaviours and relationships with both the child and partner.

Design: In-depth narrative interviews were conducted with 60 fathers (mean age: 31 years old) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Generation-2 (ALSPAC-G2), whose female partners (n=15) reported experiencing increased levels of PND on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Interviews explored how their partner’s depression affected them, their involvement in childcare and parenting, and their relationship with the child and their partner. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) to capture fathers’ experiential accounts related to their partners’ PND and the impact on their parenting in a flexible way that was sensitive to the mental health context.

Results: Fathers felt that the universal challenges of parenting may be exacerbated by maternal PND as they had to take on additional responsibilities, including becoming more involved in childcare and providing emotional support to their partner. These challenges were often experienced by fathers in the context of a strained parental relationship due to their partner’s fluctuating emotions. Fathers also experienced deterioration in their own mental health (emotional contagion), undermining their parenting confidence and ability to support their unwell partner. These feelings were often accompanied by a profound sense of isolation, extreme tiredness and guilt for not fulfilling unrealistic expectations of being the ‘strong’ partner, particularly for those fathers who had to juggle full-time employment and caring responsibilities. In some instances, fathers reported being aware of their partner’s struggles to develop a close relationship with the child and felt it was their responsibility to increase their involvement in routine childcare, such as playing, feeding and sleep time activities, to ‘compensate’ for the lack of maternal involvement. Fathers experienced these increased levels of involvement positively, describing them as an opportunity to nurture a close and intimate father-child relationship. Other fathers shared their beliefs that their primary role was to support their partner to enable her to look after the child, as well as ensuring that the child is not exposed to arguments caused by the tension and conflict in parental relationship.

Conclusions: Fathers may be negatively affected by their partners’ PND, which is reflected in deterioration of their own mental health, increased parenting stress, isolation and higher levels of conflict in the parental relationship. These findings contribute to a growing shift in research and clinical practice to address intergenerational transmission of mental health risks in families through focusing on both parents’ mental health, parenting and family environment through depression screening for both parents and family-based prevention and intervention programmes.

Author information

Author	Role
Dr. Iryna Culpin, Ph.D., Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London	Presenting author
Jessica Jones, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London	Non-presenting author
Pinar Kupdere, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London	Non-presenting author
Dr Emma Rowland, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College London	Non-presenting author

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