You are a future father! As soon as you have learnt about your wife’s pregnancy, you are encouraged to take part in the pregnancy and in the delivery process, just as much as your partner will do. However, you may feel somewhat awkward, if you become to share your concerns and insecurities. Remember, that it is natural. Here come the most widespread men’s pregnancy fears.
Security Fears
Security fear is the biggest fear, nearly all men face. They all keep asking themselves the only question: “Will I be able to protect and provide for my family?” In nearly all families, where the first baby appears, there occurs a sudden if the temporary shift from two incomes for two people to one income for three people. And nowadays it is an extremely difficult task to meet all the needs of the family alone. This is the man, who has to take care of his family from the financial point of view. Moreover, the man is to provide emotional support along with the financial one, because his wife needs his help, the postpartum period is one of the most dramatic times in every woman’s life when she undergoes great emotional shifts, and this is the man, who is to be always ready for a woman to lean on him.
Performance Fears
Most men are extremely afraid of being able to perform when their wives will be delivering. They are worried lest they would pass out, throw up, or get queasy during looking at all these bodily fluids. These fears are based on cartoons and on the culture’s way of making fun on men. Really, nothing alike happens to any of the men, who are present during their wife’s delivering.
Still, if someone knows for sure, he can not handle blood, the best way out for him is simply to step out of the delivery room. Nobody is to ignore his fears; the best way to get rid of them is to talk about them. You may discuss your troubles with other “experienced” fathers.
Paternity Fears
There are also men, who have the strong considerations that they are not the father of this very baby; though as soon as they are questioned whether they suspect their wife had been having some kind of affair, they get insulted right away. The very thing is just like all the other, connected with men: it is a disconnect from the point of view of logic, but there is something going on an emotional level. Your partner is simply dwelling on his own inadequacies. He considers that being a part of a new life creature is something too godlike, it is something, which is much bigger, than he is able to do.
Morality Fears
When men realize that they take part in the beginning of a new life, they automatically start thinking about the end of life. They understand that they are not the youngest generation any more, that there is someone, who will replace them, and that he is supposed to die long before his child will. Most young fathers begin to realize their not being immortal. And if they were fond of some dangerous things, like car racing, parachuting, etc, they may even give up their hobbies as soon as the little one of their own arrives. This mostly occurs because a new father considers he has no right to die any more.
Fear for His Wife’s or Baby’s Health and Life
The process of pregnancy and delivery requires really iron nerves. Most men realize that there is the chance that the worst thing on earth can occur to either their wives or their babies. The man may lose his wife and then he will have to bring the baby up on his own, or he may also lose his dearest little one. And there is the explanation to this kind of fear: several decades ago the main cause of death in women under 50 was childbirth. However, nowadays even if everything goes on well, you as well as your wife still be counting your newborn baby’s fingers and toes.
Relationship Fears
It is no uncommon that a man fears that his partner will love the baby more than anyone else, which may even lead to the end of their intimate relationship. It is really the fear of being replaced: if not by some other male, than by the child. there are a log of families, where the woman becomes the kind of a gatekeeper after the baby arrives, and she lets her husband come up to the little one only when she feels fit.
The most important for both parents is to realize, that each of them strengthens their family’s relationship in his or her own way. As a rule the child relies on his mother for security, comfort and warmth, but he looks to the father for his sense of freedom and separation and sense of the world.
Fears of “Women’s Medicine”
All kind of the obstetrician – gynecologist establishment is clearly not for men. Hospital examining and delivery halls are not fitted for a father to be present. And as a rule, men stay ignorant about their partner’s reproductive system and process, they consider it something, happening “down there”. This is the reason of when men encounter it all for the first time, they get clobbered with this. As a wife you may help your husband to get involved in the pregnancy period and in the delivery process by making all the important decisions together. You will have to sketch a birth plan, with a set role for both of you.
