Nursing care for the emerging family: promoting paternal behavior

In the last decade, nursing care related to childbirth has expanded from a narrow emphasis on the physical health needs of the mother and infant to a broader focus on more family-related, socioemotional needs. One prominent feature of this family-centered approach is the recent movement toward designing services to promote the formation of the mother-infant attachment bond. It is argued in this paper, however, that to achieve a truly family-centered practice, nursing must make a comparable commitment to understanding and meeting the needs of the father in the emerging family. Evidence is reviewed that suggests the father's potential contribution to the infant's overall development has been misperceived or devalued and that the father's ability and willingness to assume a more active role in the infant's care may have been underestimated. Questions for future research that would lead to a better understanding of the father's role in the emerging family are raised.