Most people have never heard of “paternal post-natal depression” or “postpartum depression in men,” yet roughly one in 10 new fathers experience it.
I was one of them. I’m a doctor. And I missed it completely.
We talk a lot about maternal postpartum depression, and we should. Mothers are routinely screened, and there is growing awareness of how serious and common it is. But fathers are largely invisible in this conversation, even within medicine.
As a physician, I’ve spent my career identifying illness in others, recognizing subtle signs, and acting quickly when something isn’t right. But when my twin daughters were born, I couldn’t see what was happening to me.
My paternal post-natal depression, or PPND, presented as depression and anxiety so severe and pervasive that I could not care for my children or support my spouse. To everyone around me, I just seemed like a belligerent, selfish jerk who couldn’t get with the program. As an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, I should have recognized what was happening.
Instead, I was completely clueless, or at least in denial. If there is ever a moment when men are not supposed to have needs, it is right after their partner gives birth. I bought into the idea that it’s normal for dads to be slow to bond with their children. Even our well-meaning pediatrician suggested I was dealing with the “baby blues” of new fatherhood (a term noticeably absent from the DSM).
PPND has not been well studied, but the research that does exist shows that between 10 percent and 15 percent of new fathers, millions of men, experience anxiety and depression in the weeks and months after birth. This is not rare; it is unrecognized.
I was lucky. I eventually learned that what I was experiencing had a name. Paternal post-natal depression exists. And as a physician, being able to name it was a turning point: it gave me hope that I might one day get better.
Newly armed with a diagnosis, I sought treatment. Therapy helped me understand the deeper roots of what I was experiencing, including aspects of my own upbringing that may have contributed. Medication helped ease the physical symptoms, the chest pains, and the constant gnawing sensations in my gut.
But perhaps most importantly, I forced myself to talk to other men about their own experiences becoming fathers. Of everything I did, this was the hardest and the most rewarding. We’ve all heard the tropes that men don’t talk about their feelings and that men don’t seek help. We’ve heard them because they are largely true, but they don’t have to be.
By the time my girls turned 3, I was able to be the father they deserved. But I wouldn’t have gotten there without first learning that PPND is real and treatable. PPND is a serious mental health crisis that’s still living in the shadows. Yet whenever I say the words out loud, I hear the same response: “I’ve never heard of that, but I think I know exactly what you mean.”
Paternal post-natal depression is real, and millions of new fathers suffer from it without support. We are not alone in this. But nothing changes until we start looking for it.