2024-03-26 05:00:42
ALINE OFFICE
When he announced his wife’s pregnancy, Vincent was very happy. In the months that followed, he bought a baby bed, went to the pharmacy as often as necessary and gave himself the impression of being well prepared. But when the birth takes place, in October 2021, he does not feel “automatic love” that he would have thought he would experience. The midwife slips the child into her arms, saying: “She’s your daughter and she’s for life. » The innocuous and colossal formula paralyzes the young father; it was at that moment, he confided, that he fell into ” the toboggan “.
This 38-year-old from Lyon (who does not wish his last name to be mentioned) was born very prematurely. He suffered from cerebral palsy, severe digestive dysfunctions and continued involvement with the medical world. By having a child, her health problems took on a whole new dimension in her mind. “I’ve been dealing with death since I was born, but for the first time, I was mortal to someone. I had a huge responsibility and fear that my body would fail me forever. I said to myself: “I’m going to die and abandon her, I can’t get attached to her.” »
Returning from the maternity ward, Vincent recounts the birth to his mother. “I said that the nurses were great, that the hospital was great. » Nothing about the child, nothing about him: “I was cut off from my emotions. » When his wife comes home, he does not realize that the baby will stay at home. The thirty-year-old, “dynamic and joyful” normally remains prostrate in an armchair. A month and a half later, his wife is exhausted. She had the idea of consulting a psychiatrist that the couple had met shortly before giving birth. The doctor concluded that she had postpartum depression.
“I will never be a good father…”
At the time, his patient didn’t believe it – he could have sworn that this disorder could only affect mothers. Nothing surprising given the low interest that this pathology in men has generated so far in the public debate and in the scientific literature, which counts “many more articles on mothers’ depression than on fathers’ depression”according to Romain Dugravier, psychiatrist at the Paris psychiatry and neurosciences university hospital group (GHU Paris) and head of department at the perinatal psychopathology center of the Paris Brune Institute (CPPB).
Vincent’s situation is not isolated, however. The Elfe cohort, which follows 18,000 children born in France in 2011, made it possible to estimate its prevalence. Postpartum depression affects 5% of fathers compared to 15% to 16% of mothers, according to a study published in The Lancet Public Health in January 2023, devoted to the effects of paternity leave on the mental health of parents. The EPDS questionnaire – for “Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale” – was submitted to 13,000 mothers and 11,000 fathers two months after birth.
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