NHS to offer mental health treatment for new fathers

[happydappy2]

The Times is running this story, apologies I can’t do a clicky link. There is no mention of women suffering PND or PTSD.....it’s all about the poor men’s feelings.......

Poor fucking men
Meanwhile women still struggle to have their post natal health, physical or mental, acknowledged and treated.

Yes, this is
One in four mothers suffers some kind of post-natal health issues and services are totally underfunded. I do believe in the need to address men’s mental health problems too, but surely it is the mother who has the greater physical and emotional and hormonal burden and risk?

Didn't new fathers always have access to mental health treatment if they needed it? Were they somehow excluded from the NHS services?

Women get PND and PTSD because they get pregnant and give birth, which causes hormonal changes and physical injuries and a lot of pain.

Men get depression and other mental health problems sometimes. I thought that already was covered by the NHS

I don't see what the specific needs of new fathers could be. Other than a big cup of coffee for all the sleepless nights. Which young mothers could use, too.

Click: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-to-offer-mental-health-treatment-for-new-fathers-k6kk0xfgb

This comes as a (very) small part of a proper look at supporting mothers post natally with lots of extra funding to properly address women's post natal health? Yes? Or probably, not.

Men’s mental health is very badly served. Women are more likely to ask for and get help, wether from official sources or thei support network encouragingly men to think it is normal to need help is a good thing. And it will help women too..isn’t that partly what feminisms asks, that men take some responsibility for sorting out the behaviour of men? Can’t complain then if they start to do tha, and starting with family is good.

Yes mental health is chronically underfunded. Separate issue.

I personally think this is a good thing.

I realise I may be in the minority here, but I had a lot of support from my GP and HV in regards to asking about mental health after I had my daughter. My husband however struggled being a new father, he found it difficult to bond etc. and I think if he had help it would have supported me too.

I think having a new baby impacts hugely on both parents.

I am very supportive of any mental health treatments being funded, however, when maternity services for women are not funded appropriately, mental health services following birth are woefully underfunded that men should not get priority in this instance.

Yes my DP struggled after the birth of my DC but it is nothing in comparison to how a woman would suffer postnatally- hormones/birth trauma.

I dont know how anyone could be against this. At the very least it could help men be better parents and partners.

Why do we complain when men's mental health (arguably the cause of a significant number of issues experienced by women) is given the attention it deserves? It smacks of "but what about mennnn" that MRAs arc up with when womens services are funded.

If we want better men who arent broken pathetic excuses for partners/fathers, we need to support them in getting the mental health care they need.

Men’s mental health is very badly served.

Absolutely. Totally agree.

Homeless men, men exiting systems like prison or military, men who have been abused, men with addictions, older men... all massive need for MH care. Post-natal MH care for men? That's the priority? Really?

This is becoming a bigger and bigger thing. That not only women get PND, what about all the poor men.....whilst I don't deny some men may struggle with suddenly not being #1 in the family equation, to try and out this on the same level as the hormonal and physical changes that women go through, irritates the shit out of me. It's not an 'equal' issue. It comes from very different places. Access to post natal services can be difficult for women to access. I agree men do need to be aware and supported post birth. But putting it level to the issues women suffer, sticks in my craw a tad.

Nudi I am not against it per se, just that with lack of funds, is it really the priority? If we had a money tree for mental health services I would absolutely be applauding this but we don't and women must come first in post natal care.

It may feel like with funding cuts it will be either womens health or mens health that gets supported, but hopefully it will be both. It should be both.

Depression and stress for some men presents as anger so i think new mothers and babies will be far safer if men access support.

I wonder what the background is to this. Who decided it was a priority, where's the funding coming from, who has been consulted and given advice? Because this:

some men may struggle with suddenly not being #1 in the family equation

is a known trigger for domestic violence and coercive control. The seeds are usually there already, of course, but the pregnancy and post-partum period is especially risky. I would love to think this is a stealth approach to dealing with that. Too cynical, though.

I think there was something like 40% of the country where no specialist maternal mental health services exist last time I saw figures.

Men don't need specialist services in the same way.

I meant specialist services related to birth for men. Just to clarify

"women must come first in post natal care"

Yes they must. And they do. They're throwing a crumb of funding towards an issue which is experienced by 10% of all fathers which previously had 0 attention. Isn't that worth commending? Isn't that worth a tiny crumb of the extra 20 billion in funding for health, regardless of whether other services are underfunded?

SD1978- They're not treating men's post natal care as "equal" to women's in need or severity or even allocation of funding. No one is saying it is equal or level, just that men experience it also so it's probably worth at least offering the service to them. And it's a bit more than just "men may struggle with suddenly not being #1 in the family equation", which is a pretty shitty way to characterise how a new father feels.

Isn't a supportive and mentally-well partner one of the best things a new mother can have? How does this not benefit mothers immensely?

Yes I'm going against the tide too. From personal experience.

I agree the provision for new mothers is still woeful - however my area does have an excellent perinatal service and I know many who've successfully accessed it.

My husband found it very hard. His Anxiety channelled on to me as I was primary care giver being on maternity and breastfeeding - I had to deal with a lot of his out of proportion worries while also coping with motherhood, chronic illness and a refluxy non sleeping baby. (To him the anxiety was completely reasonable. Looking back it really wasn't.) If I could have said here, ring this number he would have either shut the fuck up or received some support for his anxiety. Of course, going to the Gp was out of the question .

We did have some joint marriage counselling later on and a lot came up and was addressed then. Dh is visibly working on dealing with it all again with baby number 2 but sometimes I wish I could send him off with a website or phone number than have to be the one to deal with it as he won't bloody discuss it with anyone else.

Men’s mental health is very badly served.

Yes agree. There's more stigma among men about it. Dh thinks he doesn't ever get depressed or anxious. He does.

New mothers are already screened for PND, and the NHS is opening perinatal mental health centres for mothers, so it’s not as if women are ignored.

The money allocated to mental health services is woefully inadequate and is post-natal services.

Nonetheless, given what is known about pregnancy being a time that domestic violence surfaces in some relationships, or when a man shows mental health issues - I'd be pleased to see this made available, where necessary, during the pre-natal period.

Funding is the issue. But how many relationships start showing their strain around this time. MH support for men would be value for money if it prevented relationship breakdown or alleviated any of the attendant issues around it.

I also agree with silentcrow. There's a possibility that if changes in behaviour in partners are routinely highlighted as being something to watch out for as a part of the maternity services, those men who actually are showing abusive behaviour might be identified as well as any who might need a big shove to access mh support for the first time in their lives.

Actually I kept saying to my perinatal counsellor that dh was saying x y z and they just patted me on the back. No suggestion that perhaps he was expressing anxiety or what did I think was going on. It took a while for me to work out it was anxiety. If even the maternity services were slightly aware of the possibility that partners might struggle and could suggest sources of support it's only going to help.

Nuerotrash yeah I'm going with you.

I had post natal anxiety that I had to wait 6 months for 4 fucking CBT sessions to help with (by which time I'd got all sorts of books, exercises, apps sorted already), however that was made about 10x harder by having to deal with the depression and anxiety of my then DP. Who wouldn't seek help, and it nearly broke us.
If there had been a number to call so I could have sort of offloaded his problems onto someone else, it would have made those first 6 months so much easier. For me.

Yup. I come at this from two angles - personally we could really have done with more support postnatally as we nearly lost our eldest. It was very traumatic and gave me all sorts of trust issues with HPs that linger today (over ten years later I still have to do mental prep before going near the hospital). DH was already "in the system" for mental health but didn't/couldn't access support, partly through his own...pride, I guess? Fear of social services, yes, and just the sheer lack of timely contact which we've experienced before. We were lucky, we coped, but it was touch and go. Secondly I've spent the last year helping a relative deal with the acrimonious split arising from her STBXH turning into even more of a giant manbaby than he already was after the birth of their child. Would intervention have helped them? I honestly don't know. It might have set her on the road to escape sooner if she'd someone pointing out what a massive cock he was being.

I don't see why it has to be a man vs woman deal. Counselling and support as a family might work better and be more approachable - if you can reduce the fear of social services involvement.

Great to have more support for men. There should be support for everyone around mental health.

No to calling it PND or otherwise drawing equivalence with the experiences that women have around pregnancy, birth and post natally. It's not a compeititon and it's not a good idea to pretend that what men go through around pregnancy birth post natally is the same as for women. In some cases it may be as bad, but it's not the same.