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Welcome to the Engaging Fathers Blog

I'll use this first post to tell you a bit about myself & what I'm doing here. 
I'm head of training and national development at the Fatherhood Institute in the UK. The Fatherhood Institute is one of the most respected fatherhood organisations in the world. A registered UK charity (number 1075104), our work focuses on policy, research and practice.
Our vision is of a society in which there’s a great dad for every child – a society that:

  • gives all children a strong and positive relationship with their father and any father-figures
  • supports both mothers and fathers as earners and carers, and
  • prepares boys and girls for a future shared role in caring for children.
In working towards this vision we:

  • collate, participate in and publicise research
  • lobby for legal and policy changes
  • help public services, employers and others become more father-inclusive, and
  • work directly with families

This year I have been awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship in order to visit projects in Trinidad and Tobago and Vietnam that engage fathers in breastfeeding. During these visits I will be researching successful ways to engage fathers in the perinatal period, and observing projects that increase the rates of breastfeeding through specific father-focussed interventions.   I will be speaking with health care professionals, policy makers, mothers and fathers and on my return I will be writing a full report on my findings and the implications for practice and policy in the UK. 

I am travelling in January - March 2018, and while I wait I am collecting UK evidence on existing interventions and work. If you are a father who has your own experiences of breastfeeding  or a health professional keen to share observations or find out more, please leave a comment or email me at jezgarratt@googlemail.com  and please keep popping by as I will be adding new pages throughout my travels. 


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Fathers and Breastfeeding Research Summary

For more information please visit www.fatherhoodinstitute.org   A number of studies have found fathers influencing mothers’ decisions to initiate and/or sustain breastfeeding (for review, see Scott et al, 2001). ‘Unpacking’ this research it has been found that support from the infant’s father through active participation in the breastfeeding decision, together with a positive attitude by him and knowledge about the benefits of breastfeeding, have been shown to have a strong influence on the initiation and duration of breastfeeding (Swanson & Power, 2005; Arora et al, 2000; Bromberg & Darby, 1997). Low-income women in particular suggest that male support is crucial in their decision to breastfeed (Schmidt & Sigman-Grant, 2000). It is worth noting that mothers’ perceptions of their partners’ attitudes to breastfeeding – on which researchers often rely – may not be accurate: when the men are interviewed directly, their attitudes can be more positive than expected and
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Lost in Translation

To prepare for my travels I have started to collect the UK information base - who is saying what to fathers about breastfeeding. It turns out not many are saying much of anything, but there are still patches of good work. This work is not rolled out though, and one reason is the lack of evidence of their effectiveness. In this world of budget cuts and squeezed capacity I have found work that is promising, and some are really impressive, but the lack of longitudinal studies or a solid evidence base means that they wont get commissioned, so these good projects will lose out when it comes to funding or only survive for as long as the worker can carry on. One of the reasons I wanted to focus on breastfeeding and fathers was my own personal experience of being an expectant grandmother.  My daughter was about six months pregnant and I attended an antenatal appointment with her. Her midwife handed me an invitation for a grandparents evening at the local maternity unit, an evening speciall
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