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Welcome to the Narrative Series, a poetic frame exploring the father's perspective of pregnancy and pregnancy loss experience.

Often times during a bereavement, the dad's experience of loss is drastically different than that of the mother.
A study titled, “Men’s grief following pregnancy loss and neonatal loss: a systematic review and emerging theoretical model” published in January 2020 found, “… that in comparison to women, men may face different challenges including expectations to support female partners, and a lack of social recognition for their grief and subsequent needs. Men may face double-disenfranchised grief in relation to the pregnancy/neonatal loss experience.”
The Journal of Neonatal Nursing (vol 29, Issue 3) published another study June 2023 titled “Father’s Perception of the NICU Experience” which states that: “Research has revealed that more than 50% of NICU fathers experience feelings of inadequate emotional support and a lack of essential information regarding caring for their premature infants. Fathers reported that frequently, healthcare workers tend to approach the mother when discussing prognosis and determining medical decisions, which makes the fathers feel like an observer and not an active participant in their infant's care. These experiences caused the fathers to feel helpless, in the way, and excluded, which can add to the father's distress.”
Overall, these studies only begin to scratch the surface of the multifaceted issues complicating fathers' disenfranchisement in hospital settings and during a bereavements.
If you're a bereaved dad struggling with your loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, any neonatal) and want to discover your strength in grief, send an email to the address or a DM to either of the accounts below.

CONTACT
[email protected]

INSTAGRAM
@_dadalways
@themiscarriagedads

Dad Always is the community you don't know you need.

Narrated by: Kelly Jean-Philippe

Music: Every Part Of You by Solitude

From: Podcastle.ai