Grant: Project Grant

The proposed study focuses on fathers' experiences during their partner's pregnancy, a time when scientific knowledge and antenatal care services, are mainly focused on mothers and infants. Expectant fathers' contributions during pregnancy have been understudied and efforts to capitalize on this 'window of opportunity' to engage, educate and empower expectant fathers have been minimal despite repeated calls nationally and internationally. Guided by leading father-child involvement theory and the existing literature, our proposed study will examine the influence of a comprehensive set of factors on fathers' engagement during pregnancy, including gender role beliefs of each parent, which have yet to be examined. We have carefully selected measures previously validated with men. We address a major limitation in prior studies by having developed and pilot tested a gender senstive measure to capture the varied ways men may engage with their partner's pregnancy. A better understanding of the factors associated to father engagement during pregnancy is an essential step to guide the development of gender-responsive and father-inclusive strategies to better integrate fathers throughout the pregnancy process.