Visual Summary / DVFZ Books
There is a real job for you in these nine months.
What happens to your partner, to your baby and to you, stage by stage, and what a first-time father can actually do at each one.
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01 The first minute
Your reaction to the news is the first thing you hand her
A lot arrives at once when the test comes back positive: fear, excitement, and for most men a very practical question, "How am I going to take care of this child?" All of that is normal. What you say out loud in the next few minutes is the part you can steer.
Gian Pittard cites research by Kazemi, Ghaedrahmati and Kheirabadi, who surveyed 303 Iranian women with unexpected pregnancies. Their finding was that a partner's emotional reaction was related to pregnancy planning and to prenatal depression and anxiety. The book's instruction follows from it: guard your reaction, because she reads it.
MacDonald describes three ways men typically react. None of the three is support, and all three are common enough to have names.
Pregnancy is identified as a potent stressor that can seriously affect the psychic status of pregnant women, perinatal outcome, but also psychic functioning of the newborn individual. Bjelica and Kapor-Stanulovic, quoted in First-Time Papa
Before anything else, say one sentence that puts you on her side. Then take your own time to think it through, and do that thinking with a friend, a family member or another expectant dad rather than in front of her.
02 First trimester
Useful sits between absent and hovering
In the first trimester her body does the work you cannot see. Morning sickness, exhaustion, mood swings, strange food cravings and a libido that may rise or fall are all common, and the book is careful to say that none of them are universal. What her friend went through is not a forecast.
The practical list is small and physical. Offer to get her physician-approved medicine for the vomiting. Hold her hair back and rub her back, and reassure her that being sick in front of you is fine. Do not ask what is for dinner: cook your own food. Take on the strenuous chores. Remind her about her prenatal vitamins and her water.
The chapter is just as firm about the other failure. Slowing over every bump, keeping people from coughing near her, refusing to let her carry anything: none of that protects the pregnancy, and it annoys her. Heavy furniture and heavy appliances are what she is actually advised not to lift. What does protect it is medical, and the book sets it out plainly: folic acid supplements to reduce the risk of neural tube defects, telling the doctor about every medication she takes, since some, including the antidepressant Paxil, are linked to heart defects in infants, and no alcohol at all, because Logsdon reports there is no research establishing a safe amount and no type that is safer than another.
Take one strenuous chore off her list without being asked, and ask her doctor which medicines she can safely take for the nausea. The book notes that in the first trimester the fetus is more susceptible to damage from alcohol, drugs, certain medicines and illnesses such as rubella, and that whatever she eats reaches the baby through the umbilical cord. Later, have your newborn screened for hearing and other conditions before discharge from the hospital: early detection is what makes early intervention possible.
03 Second trimester
From the second trimester on, your baby can hear you
The middle stretch is usually the easier one. Morning sickness tends to lessen, tiredness and breast tenderness ease, her appetite often returns. It is also the point at which you stop being an observer.
John Hopkins Medicine, which the book draws on throughout, reports that a baby who hears a parent's voice from the second trimester can identify that voice in the last three months of pregnancy and after birth, and that this makes for a stronger bond once the baby arrives. Gian Pittard adds a second reason to do it: talking to your baby helps you cope with your own anxiety.
By the end of this trimester the fetus is about thirteen to sixteen inches long and weighs about two to three pounds. It kicks and turns, its fingers and toes have separated, it moves through cycles of sleep and wakefulness, and its brain development is at its most important, especially from the fifth month onwards.
Say something to the bump, out loud, and keep doing it. Then use this easier stretch for the planning the third trimester will not leave room for: choose a hospital, ask her which kind of birth she wants, help her register with the hospital, and raise paternity leave with your employer.
04 Third trimester
The last months run on a schedule, so use it
When she enters the third trimester her prenatal appointments move from once a month to every two weeks, and to once a week in the final month. That cadence is your planning grid, and the book asks you to attend the majority of the visits.
Each visit checks her symptoms, weight and blood pressure, a urine test for albumin (a protein that may indicate preeclampsia or toxemia) and for glucose, the baby's position, growth and development, the height of the fundus (the top of the uterus) and the baby's heartbeat. It is also where your own questions get answered.
Two dates belong to you. Help her pack the hospital bag at about 32 weeks so it is ready if labor comes early, and pack one even if you have planned a home birth. Around week 36 the baby's head drops into the pelvic area, a shift called lightening. By 38 to 40 weeks the lungs have finished maturing.
Set a reminder for 32 weeks and build the bag with her: the pregnancy health record, comfortable oversized clothes, extra maternity underwear, socks and slippers, toiletries, maternity sanitary pads, a maternity bra with flaps, breast pads, newborn or premature nappies, onesies, socks, mittens, a beanie, cotton or muslin wraps and a baby blanket.
05 Labor and birth
Labor is three stages, and only one of them is pushing
The book corrects a misunderstanding it says most men carry. When someone says a woman was in labor for eighteen hours, she was not pushing for eighteen hours. Labor may take anywhere between twelve and twenty hours, and the pushing runs from twenty minutes to two hours.
In the first stage her contractions get stronger, longer and more frequent, softening the cervix so it can open. At four to five centimetres she is in established labor. The second stage begins at full dilation, about ten centimetres, and that is when she pushes. The third stage delivers the placenta and typically lasts twenty to thirty minutes, though it can take up to an hour. Two methods get the baby out. Vaginal birth is the most common and, the book says, the safest. Cesarean birth is major abdominal surgery, and the United States has a Cesarean rate of over 32 percent. Read about Cesarean even if she has chosen a vaginal birth, because for most first-time mothers the decision is made during labor.
The signs of labor the book lists, from the NHS: sharp contractions or tightenings, a sharp backache, a much greater need for the toilet as the baby's head presses on her bladder, and her water breaking. Waters break before labor starts in only 8 to 10 percent of pregnancies, so in most cases contractions come first.
If her water breaks, before or during labor, phone the doctor or take her in, even if the due date is weeks away. If you cannot tell whether the fluid is amniotic or urine, call anyway. The risk of infection climbs the longer labor takes to start after the waters go, so know the signs the book lists: fever, sweating, constant pain that is not passing contractions, and foul-smelling discharge. Earlier in the pregnancy, cramps or sharp abdominal pains, bleeding that starts and stops and starts again, bleeding after intercourse, or bleeding in the second half of pregnancy are the book's cue to contact your health-care provider about placenta previa.
06 When it goes wrong
The non-birthing partner grieves too, usually in silence
The book gives a full chapter to loss and does not soften it. A miscarriage is the loss of fetal life before 20 weeks. Between 10 and 20 percent of pregnancies end that way, around one in five confirmed pregnancies, and most happen in the first 12 weeks. A stillbirth is a loss from 20 weeks to birth, roughly one in sixty pregnancies in the United States. A neonatal death is a baby who dies within the first 28 days.
What the chapter adds, and what most pregnancy books leave out, is the father. Farren and colleagues surveyed 192 couples in the United Kingdom after early pregnancy loss and found almost 10 percent of partners had post-traumatic stress. The pattern they describe is a trap: you go quiet in order to be strong, she reads distance, and the feelings compound.
Non-birthing partners attempt to be strong for the mom because they feel as that is their role, but they will grieve in silence. Farren and colleagues, quoted in First-Time Papa
Do not try to fix it. Listen, and let her grieve at her own pace rather than rushing her towards the positive. Then take your own grief somewhere: a friend, a family member, a support group. The book's advice, from doula Talitha Phillips, is to seek counselling help from a professional as soon as possible, and if either of you feels you are not coping, to talk to a doctor, counsellor or therapist.
07 After the birth
Baby blues pass in days. Depression does not
Feeling sad, empty, moody or fatigued in the first days after a birth is common enough to have a name, the baby blues, and the book says those feelings usually disappear after a few days. Postpartum depression is a different thing. It can develop any time after birth, often starting within one to three weeks, it lasts weeks, and it is treatable.
It affects up to one in seven new mothers in the United States. The symptoms the book lists are physical as well as emotional: appetite changes, trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, rapid heart rate, nausea and chest tightness; then agitation, obsessive worry, dread, withdrawal, feeling worthless or trapped, intense mood swings, long crying spells, anger, and thoughts of suicide or of harming the baby. None of it is her fault, and the book asks you to keep telling her so.
Fathers are not exempt. Research cited in the book finds up to 10 percent of men experience depression following the birth of a child, and Fisher and colleagues report that as many as one in four new fathers in the United States may experience major depression four weeks after the birth. In men it tends to look like anxiety, emptiness, irritability and anger, persistent worry about providing, disinterest in parenting, and withdrawal from family and friends.
If either of you has these symptoms for longer than a week, tell your doctor or another health-care professional and ask about treatment. The book lists medication, therapy and support groups, notes that a combination of medication and therapy is the most effective, and adds that antidepressants typically take six to eight weeks to become effective. For a father, the first step is simply telling your partner or someone you trust that you are struggling.
08 Being a present dad
Presence, not perfection, is what the research keeps finding
Once the baby is home the first weeks are genuinely hard, and the book says so: night feeds, nappy changes, a lot of crying, and a life suddenly built around someone else's schedule. Take turns. A breast pump lets you do a night feed, which gives her sleep and gives you time alone with your child.
The developmental research the book leans on is consistent. Positive fathering improves social, emotional, cognitive and linguistic outcomes in children, and the quality of a man's parenting matters more than the legal, biological or residential tie.
The more extensive a father's emotional investment, attachment, provision of resources and involvement with his children are, the better off children will be in terms of cognitive competence, school performance, empathy, self-esteem, well-being, life skills, and social competence. Developmental consensus, quoted in First-Time Papa
The Palm Beach County family study, reported by Spielberger and colleagues, sorted what fathers actually do into ten positive activities and four negative ones. The positive list is deliberately ordinary: praise and encourage, bring them on errands, take them outside to play, read together, sing, tell stories, let them help with the housework, play games, build things, and talk to them about anything at all.
Pick one ordinary thing from that list and make it a routine. And take the break the book recommends: when the baby will not settle, the phone is ringing and nobody has slept, go outside and breathe before you go back in. Staying well is part of the job, not a break from it.
09 The whole book
Nine months, then a lifetime, and your part starts now
Gian Pittard never claims a father can carry the pregnancy. He claims something smaller and far more useful: that what you do with your attention, your hands and your voice changes how the pregnancy goes and how the child turns out.
Guard the first minute
Your reaction lands on her, and her stress is tied to prenatal anxiety. After that, be useful in a physical way and stop short of hovering.
Know the map
Three stages of labor, two birth methods, one appointment schedule to plan against. Know which calls you have to make, and make them early.
Stay in the room
Baby blues pass in days; depression does not, in either of you. Presence, not perfection, is what the research on fathers keeps finding.
You will not get all of it right, and the book never asks you to. It asks you to be there, and to say so out loud.
Adapted from First-Time Papa: Kickstarting Your Parenting Journey and Loving It
Gian Pittard · © 2023 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services · 63 cited sources in the source edition