what are the symptoms of Daddy Blues that affect dads?

The unconditional love felt towards baby, as soon as he arrives on Earth, is an overrated cliché that should be dismantled. Indeed, it feeds an enormous gap between what we had imagined and what we saw in the facts; between our expectations and reality. Psychologically speaking, the fact of being a young parent is all the more complicated to manage: idealized parenthood ends up colliding violently with experienced parenthood. In most cases, the impact on mental health is substantial.

If this depression (which may or may not be temporary) is known and identified in the mothers, it is much less so on the fathers’ side. However, like their partner, they too are faced with the enormous upheavals that occur with the child! These changes lead to a whole set of emotions, mood disorders, and symptoms close to depression. It is these physical and psychic manifestations which ultimately constitute what is called “Daddy Blues”. Unrecognized by medicine, this condition nevertheless affects nearly 10% of dads according to an INSERM study.* What is Daddy Blues? Where does it really come from?

How is the Postpartum Baby Blues expressed in fathers?

The Daddy Blues Happens Almost Immediately after the birth of the child : in some cases, it only takes a few days to appear. In other cases, it can happen a few months later. It is above all characterized by increased fragility and emotional vulnerability. Suddenly, the dad is overwhelmed with emotions that he finds it difficult to manage and which occur following the arrival of the baby: irritability, sadness, depression, stress, even anxiety can then drown it and affect their mental health. It can go from temporary blues to one postpartum depression deeper, which is long-lasting.

These mood disorders can therefore set in for a long time, fueled by this “chaotic” way of life, engendered by the newborn: lack of sleep, insomnia, loss of appetite… In the columns of daily life The Parisian**, a young father explains that following the birth of his baby, he “started doing weird stuff” that he had never experienced before his paternity. For example, he has experienced symptoms similar to those of anxiety (nausea), developed phobias not experienced in the past (fear of the crowd, in his case)…

At the same time, the young dad, who has never experienced this new status, can also feel lost. Since it’s a first, he doesn’t know what to do to take good care of the baby, has no bearings. It can also feel overwhelmed by all of your new responsibilities. These two elements combined contribute to making him doubt his ability to assume his role as a father… And the feeling of guilt thus adds to the long list of negative emotions that he may already be experiencing. Difficult for him to immediately create a bond of attachment with his child when so many negative feelings overwhelm him…

“Daddy Blues”: where does it come from?

If the Daddy Blues is underestimated compared to the Mommy Blues, it is above all because the causes are little known and/or little understood. Indeed, young mothers have a biological origin to justify it: the variation of pregnancy-related hormones. Men, on the other hand, do not experience hormonal changes, since they do not carry the child. And it is paradoxically this “non-pregnancy” of the dad who will be at the origin of his discomfort.

– First of all, he accuses a delay in becoming aware of parenthood : he did not experience motherhood, did not carry the baby: he therefore takes longer to realize that he is going to become a father. Result: the shock is greater and the upheaval all the more important when the child arrives. He does not have the physical upheavals of pregnancy, but bears the brunt of the postpartum psychological upheavals.

– The other reason advanced by psychologists is that the father finds it difficult to find his place, whether in the parent-child relationship, or in the loving relationship with the mother. He is unable to make his place with the baby, who maintains a close relationship with his maternal figure; but also loses space in the life of his spouse, the child having become his priority.

How to explain it? The fact of carrying the baby in fact creates a special bond between the mother and the latter: as explained by the researcher Jacqueline Nadel, mentioned by our counterparts in QG***: “During pregnancy, the fetus shares its mother’s biochemistry. Synchrony is physiological, hormonal and sensory at the same time (…) Even the heartbeats of mother and infant synchronize when mother and baby interact”. During its first months of existence, the infant automatically feels more secure in the arms of its mother; his smell or his voice being more familiar to him. The relationship between the two is practically fusional and the father finally finds it difficult to interfere.

Of course, getting out of this Daddy Blues is quite possible. Time (through sufficiently long paternity leave), social support and emotional, good communication with the mother, the progressive construction of her place from the beginning to the end of the pregnancy, can sweep away this temporary depression.

Open-minded and in love with life, Emilie likes to decipher the new phenomena that shape society and relationships today. Her passion for the human being motivates her to write…