When he found out his wife was pregnant, Aled Edwards felt something wasn’t quite right. They’d been trying for a baby for three years, yet from that evening, and for every night until their much longed-for son, Sullivan, was six months old, Aled suffered nightmares.
‘I’d dream someone was breaking into the house and I’d tackle them but end up being stabbed halfway up the stairs,’ recalls the 39-year-old engineer from North Wales.
‘Or the house would be burning down and I would lower everyone else out of the window but not get out myself.’
But then the nightmares stopped as suddenly as they started.
However, two years after Sullivan was born, in 2021, when the couple learned they were expecting a second child, Aled’s nightmares started again and continued after daughter Bea was born. For two-and-a-half years, Aled would wake up shouting and panicking, going into each room to check the children were OK and there was no intruder.
And no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t feel a bond with Bea.
‘I was having to force myself to express excitement,’ says Aled, whose wife Sophie, 35, is a midwife. ‘I felt I had to put on a show. I kept thinking, “What’s wrong with me? I should be happier”. Bea was beautiful and perfect, so it had to be me that was the problem.’
It would take three years to get to the root of Aled’s problems: postnatal depression (PND).
Aled Edwards, from Bangor, North Wales, with his children Sullivan 7 and Bea, 4
Although usually associated with new mothers, recent research suggests it is as common, if not more so, among new fathers. Up to 13 per cent of fathers may experience depression during early parenthood, reported the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth in 2023 (compared to around 10 per cent of mothers, according to the NHS).
New research from Swansea University has revealed that two to three fathers a week died by suicide during the time between their partner being pregnant and the child reaching the age of two – seven times the rate among mothers (suicide is the leading cause of death in mothers in the first year of their child’s life).
The study was based on data from Wales (the only UK country that records the age of children at the time of paternal suicide).
Paternal postnatal depression, as with the maternal condition, is defined as depression that starts within a year of the mother giving birth. Symptoms vary but include emotions becoming darker, as well as losing the ability to feel emotion or pleasure, and increased anxiety, intense distress and irritability.
As Dr Livia Martucci, a psychiatrist and chair of the perinatal faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, explains: ‘It affects thinking processes. People’s thoughts turn inwards to all the things they do wrong or that could go wrong. It might make parents feel incompetent or inadequate, that they can’t bond with their baby or, very strongly, that they are no good to that baby.
‘Nightmares are a common symptom of anxiety and depression but can also be about trauma, including about the birth – if, for example, it was complicated or frightening. It is not just mothers who can be traumatised.’
It is often more common for men with PND to become less communicative and conceal their emotions, which can lead to outbursts. A dramatic change in personality can be another red flag.
While bouts of low mood or anxiety are normal when a new baby comes along, says Dr Martucci, she recommends speaking to your partner, going to your GP or contacting organisations specialising in paternal mental health, such as PANDAS Foundation UK or The Fatherhood Institute, as soon as you think something is not right.
In 2021 Aled had postnatal anxiety and depression and tried to take his own life. Now, he feels much better and is open with his wife Sophie and his children about how he is feeling
‘The key thing is not to wait until it becomes unbearable. You don’t have to grin and bear it,’ she says.
As well as having witnessed a traumatic birth, risk factors include having a history of depression, financial instability and a lack of family or social support.
However, research suggests naturally lower levels of testosterone might make postnatal depression more likely in some fathers. One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, found new fathers’ testosterone dropped by approximately 34 per cent in the month after their child was born – thought to be an evolutionary response to shift a new father’s focus to parenting by promoting nurturing.
Aled initially told no one how he was feeling in the weeks after Bea’s birth – but the numbness grew worse, extending to Sophie and Sullivan. He lost interest in eating, drinking, working, going out and was having obsessive thoughts about not being good enough and letting his children down (he has two other children from a previous relationship).
A month after Bea was born, he went to his GP, who put him in contact with a local mental health team – he had a call with them. But before his next appointment, in October 2021, six weeks after Bea’s arrival, Aled was out walking the dog when he felt so desperate he considered taking his own life.
‘I was in floods of tears. I thought: I can’t do this any more. I couldn’t be in this pain.’
It was only the memory of Sullivan that morning wrapping his arms around his father, squeezing him as hard as he could that made Aled pause. He went home and told Sophie before taking himself to A&E. Aled says: ‘I was numb. People asked me why, but I didn’t have an answer. I just wanted to be on my own.’
He was prescribed antidepressants but these didn’t help and affected his sex drive, so he stopped them. A psychiatrist diagnosed adverse childhood trauma, which struck Aled as wrong as, although he’d had a difficult time, it felt more than that.
Aled first heard about paternal PND after contacting a fathers’ support group. ‘I thought it was something only women got – a hormonal thing,’ he says.
A psychologist then told him men couldn’t have PND, but his GP agreed this was what Aled had. By this time, Bea was now three, he’d had four sessions of trauma therapy, but he says going to a men’s group was like a light bulb turning on.
‘These sessions allowed me to realise it wasn’t just me,’ he says. ‘It was comforting to know other people were experiencing those similar things, and we were all able to support each other.’
‘A lot of fathers don’t get diagnosed and end up in mental health services after that postnatal period,’ says Mark Williams, founder of Fathers Reaching Out, an organisation that advocates for better mental health services.
‘Sometimes they never get to the root of why it happened. But they may have witnessed a traumatic birth or had baby loss.’
Florence Bristow, a clinical psychologist at The Perinatal Psychology Practice, a private national practice, adds: ‘There is a huge shift going on for dads, too. There’s a change to their identity, a shift in potential worries and the responsibility to care for their partner and this tiny, helpless human.’
One barrier to new fathers seeking support is the belief that it’s not their place to find things hard, as it’s the mother who is going through pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. ‘That can be tricky for a lot of men,’ says Florence Bristow.
‘Maybe the dad is trying to be supportive and help at night, but also works a nine-hour day, then he comes home, and the mum is desperate to hand the baby over – there is no space for him.’
Diagnosing and tackling PND is important. A recent UK study, published in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that the children of fathers who had PND were more likely to have hyperactivity and experience peer problems by the age of seven – possibly as it leads to increased conflict between father and child and lower levels of father-child warmth.
‘There are many factors that interfere and contribute – but it can affect the whole life trajectory,’ says psychiatrist Dr Martucci.
Currently, there is no specialist mental health service for new fathers; they must rely on local support groups, like the one Aled has set up in Wales, How’s Dad? (Sut Mae Dad?). He is deeply grateful he was correctly diagnosed and treated, and he now has a strong and loving bond with his children, aged seven and four.
‘That numbness has completely gone,’ he says. ‘I am really open about how I am feeling with Sophie and the children. I don’t want them to have the same experience I did. Sullivan is really good at telling me when he is angry – although most of the time it is because I am not letting him have chocolate for breakfast.’
- For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116 123, or visit samaritans.org