Dads Struggle Too: Paternal Postpartum Depression Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe depression in new fathers, which many of the men simply called a bad stretch. For some it arrived as anger and a fist through a hollow bathroom door, drinking that was closer to forty a week than ten, hours lost to a games console, or frightening intrusive thoughts they did not dare say aloud. Others felt only flatness. Their situations range from a son born eleven weeks early and twin boys at thirty-six weeks to a partner seriously ill after the birth, a stillbirth before the next baby, a heart condition found at the twenty-week scan, a redundancy three weeks in, and a partner who left when their daughter was seven weeks old. The fathers include a long-haul trucker, a Navy sailor home from deployment, a farmer at harvest, a night-shift nurse, a startup founder, a deacon, a clinical psychologist, a dad of nineteen and a new father at fifty-two, along with adoptive dads and two gay fathers. They write from Oulu to Accra and Honolulu to Pune. Writers describe family doctors, tablets, counselling and couples counselling, crisis lines, dads' groups, long parental leave in Sweden and three generations in one flat. A few describe dark thoughts, one man's depression returned after he came off long-term tablets, and for many the lifting was slow.

Who it's for

For new fathers and partners who suspect something is off, for the mothers, grandparents and friends watching them go quiet, and for clinicians who want to hear how it looks from the inside.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 235 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.