Download printable brochure (PDF: 836KB)
Maternal health is an area in which men can potentially play an important role. Reducing maternal morbidity and mortality necessarily relies on the collaboration of other members of a woman’s household, in addition to health workers and the woman herself. Providing fathers and other family members more information about the health risks involved in the whole process, and clarifying for them the important roles they could fill in identifying and responding to problems, programs can find constructive ways of recruiting men to support women’s reproductive health and to learn more about their own. Men can see to women’s nutritional needs during pregnancy, support women in seeking out prenatal care, and recognize the symptoms of complications.
Programs can respect and affirm responsible roles men may play already in their families. Varied evidence suggests that men who are more involved in the health of their families themselves enjoy better health and closer relationships with their family members. One profound effect of encouraging men to be more involved in the nurturing of their children may be to reduce male violence by building greater closeness between boys and men and by increasing respect for the work child-rearing requires.
Please note: Some of the following links lead to PDF or PowerPoint documents that may take a little while to load. If no helper program is available, they will download automatically to your hard drive.
Program Examples
- Caribbean Fathers, Incorporated. For information on Fathers, Inc., see the Communication Initiative at www.comminit.com/experiences/pdskdv12003/experiences-1039.html. Or Barry Chevannes’ keynote address at the 2003 IGWG Male Involvement Conference at www.jhuccp.org/igwg/keynotes/BarryChevannes.pdf.
- Cohen, R., et al. “A Description of A Male-Focused Breastfeeding Promotion Corporate Lactation Program” in Journal of Human Lactation (2002).
- EngenderHealth. The New Gender Platforms and Fatherhood (2004).
- Fathers Direct, a National (UK) Information Centre on Fatherhood (accessed online June 15, 2006).
- International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Fulfilling Fatherhood: Experiences from HIV Positive Fathers (November 2005).
- Population Council. “Effects of Husband Involvement on Postabortion Patients’ Recovery and Use of Contraception in Egypt,” in Postabortion Care: Lessons from Operations Research, pp. 16-27 (1999).
- Population Council. India: Men’s Involvement in Partner’s Pregnancy Yields Health Benefits (June 2004).
- Population Council. Men as Supportive Partners in Reproductive Health. Moving from Rhetoric to Reality (2004).
- Population Council. South Africa: Antenatal Couples Counseling Is Feasible But Challenging (February 2006).
- United Nations. Fatherhood in Adolescence: The Construction of Political Agenda (October 2003).
- UNICEF. Iniciativa Papa: Improving the Lives of Children, One Father at a Time (2001).
- UNICEF. Role of Men in the Lives of Children. A Study of How Improving Knowledge About Men in Families Helps Strengthen Programming for Children and Women (December 1997).
Programmatic Tools
Research and Evaluation