[Fathers, patients in mother and baby unit? Thinking about family-based approach in perinatal care]

Abstract

Background: The perinatal period is a psychic risk for fathers because of multiple overhauls. Fathers' place in perinatal medicine has evolved these last few years but continues to be poorly limited. These psychic difficulties are barely investigated and diagnosed in everyday medical practice. The prevalence of depressive episodes by new fathers was high in the most recent research studies. This thus is a public health problem with consequences on the family system both in the short and the long-term.

Review: In the mother and baby unit, the father's psychiatric care is often secondary. But with societal modifications, there is the question of impact of separation between the father and the mother and the baby. With the family based approach, care by the father is indispensable for the care of the mother, baby, and the family's as a whole.

Objective: In our mother and baby unit located in Paris, fathers were also hospitalized as patients. Therefore difficulties in the familial dynamic, between each member of the triad and mental health difficulties of fathers were able to be treated.

Conclusion: Following the hospitalization of a few triads with a positive evolution, a reflection process is now in progress.

Keywords: Approche systémique; Family based approach; Father; Mother and baby unit; Perinatal mental health; Pères; Santé mentale périnatale; Triad; Triade; UHMB.