Postpartum Fathers
Feelings after Birth. Fathers who are present at
birth are, more often than mothers, captured by
the baby immediately. Whereas women may need minutes,
hours, or a few days to feel connected to the baby,
fathers often feel the power of this connection
at the moment of birth. Unless the mother or baby
is in some danger just after birth, the father is
likely to find these moments life-changing and exquisite.
These feelings are often blended with a sudden awareness
of exhaustion.
A father also experiences new feelings about
his mate. He may speak of his amazement at her
courage, strength, and endurance during labor.
He now faces the task of integrating his memory
of her in labor with his previous knowledge and
feelings about her.
A father may have to work through feelings he
experienced while supporting the mother in labor.
One of the most common feelings fathers speak
about after labor is that of helplessness. Unless
he is told, a man may not know how much his presence
and emotional support really meant to the laboring
woman.
A man may also feel that the labor experience
has altered his whole life view. He may have gained
a sense of the miraculous and spiritual, of a
deeper meaning to life.
Not all fathers, of course, are able to share
the birth experience. A lot of fathers who missed
their babies' births worry that not having been
there will affect their relationships with their
babies. Birth is a special moment in the parent-child
relationship, but it is only one moment. The years
of child rearing provide many other shared moments
that are just as important in the development
of a relationship between father and child.
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