Do fathers matter? Paternal contributions to birth outcomes and racial disparities

The Influence of Antenatal Partner Support on Pregnancy Outcomes

“…Targeting fathers has been proposed as a key strategy to mitigate racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes, 34,35 and further inquiry into the role of the partner and fathers during pregnancy on such disparities is needed. 7,11,34 However, we note that this finding should be interpreted with caution, owing to the small sample sizes for analysis. More research is needed to replicate our work using a larger sample.…”

“…There are several plausible explanations for our findings. As discussed by Misra,7 factors such as fathers' attitudes and intentions regarding the pregnancy, own prenatal health behaviors, and the mother-father relationship likely influence maternal health and well-being during the perinatal period. Partners are one of the most important influences on women's smoking habits during pregnancy 30,31 and there is evidence that fathers' smoking intensifies the effect of mothers' smoking on infant birth weight.…”

“…This research demonstrates that factors such as older paternal age, higher anthropometry (e.g., height and weight), and fathers' own birth weight are associated with poor birth outcomes such as low birth weight. 6 Less understood are the indirect social pathways linking fathers to pregnancy outcomes, 7 but research suggests that they are likely to be influential through their impact on maternal health and well-being. 8 For example, evidence suggests that pregnant women with involved partners (e.g., those who listened to the baby's heartbeat, bought things for the baby, and attended childbirth or Lamaze classes) are more likely to receive early prenatal care and to reduce cigarette smoking than women whose partners are not involved in the pregnancy.…”

Pregnancy Intention and Post-partum Depressive Affect in Louisiana Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System

“…One potential mechanism in the relation between marital status or lack of a partner and risk of PPD is the effect of partner support on the mother's perceived social support, which may be linked to PPD [35,36]. While paternal support can be defined through multiple measures: financial support, assistance with child-rearing, the presence of the father on the baby's birth certificate [41][42][43][44][45][46][47], father's own pregnancy wantedness or intention is another aspect of social support related to maternal mental health that has received much less attention in the literature. While few studies have examined the increase in risk of PPD as a result of partner pregnancy intention [16], research on partners' pregnancy intentions and relationship quality has demonstrated the important role that relationship quality and partner intentions play in prenatal care [48], smoking during pregnancy [49], and subsequent high-risk pregnancies [50].…”

Safety of disease-modifying drugs for multiple sclerosis in pregnancy: current challenges and future considerations for effective pharmacovigilance

“…These potential confounders should be considered in any analysis of birth outcomes of individuals with MS. In addition to the well-established contribution of maternal factors on birth outcomes, it is recognized that paternal ethnic origin, height and birthweight and the degree of paternal involvement during pregnancy may influence birth outcomes [43,44]. Furthermore, as most women with MS and their clinicians would take precautions to avoid DMD exposure in planned pregnancies [30], it is very likely that a higher proportion of unintended pregnancies make up the DMD-exposed cohort relative to the DMD-unexposed cohort.…”