Feto-infant Health and Survival: Does Paternal Involvement Matter?

Lack of paternal involvement during pregnancy and infancy may account for a significant burden of the adverse pregnancy outcomes among black women and could therefore, represent an important avenue providing the opportunity to improve feto-infant health and survival. This study aimed to review the l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Maternal and child health journal 2010-11, Vol.14 (6), p.931-937
Main Authors: Alio, Amina P., Salihu, Hamisu M., Kornosky, Jennifer L., Richman, Alice M., Marty, Phillip J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Babies
Birth weight
Black people
Childrens health
Domestic relations
Families & family life
Family structure
Fathers
Female
Fetal Mortality
Gestational Age
Gynecology
Health
Health Behavior
Hispanic people
Humans
Infant
Infant Mortality
Infant, Low Birth Weight
Infant, Newborn
Infants
Male
Marital status
Maternal & child health
Maternal and Child Health
Maternal Welfare
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Morbidity
National libraries
Paternity
Pediatrics
Population Economics
Pregnancy
Pregnancy Outcome
Prenatal Care
Public Health
Sociology
Womens health
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Summary:Lack of paternal involvement during pregnancy and infancy may account for a significant burden of the adverse pregnancy outcomes among black women and could therefore, represent an important avenue providing the opportunity to improve feto-infant health and survival. This study aimed to review the literature on paternal involvement during the perinatal period and its influence on feto-infant health and survival. Literature for this review was identified by searching the PubMed database from the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the US National Library of Medicine as well as the ISI Web of Knowledge Databases, OVID, and CINAHL. A total of seven papers were identified and included in this review. There is paucity of data in this domain. Overall findings suggest that paternal involvement during pregnancy may have important implications for maternal prenatal health behaviors and feto-infant health. Although results are limited, results suggest that paternal involvement has a positive influence on prenatal care usage, abstinence from alcohol and smoking, and a reduction in low birth weight and small for gestational age infants. None of the papers examined the relationship between stillbirth and paternal involvement. Additional studies with enhanced measures of paternal involvement are needed to better assess the role of fathers in enhancing prenatal health behaviors and pregnancy outcomes. Efforts should be made to include fathers in future studies and reduce reliance on maternal report and to investigate paternal roles across different racial groups so that appropriate interventions can be developed.
ISSN:1092-7875
1573-6628
DOI:10.1007/s10995-009-0531-9