Partners and dads after pregnancy or baby loss

Partners often feel overlooked, because the pregnant partner’s pain is more visible. This can stop you from recognising your own loss.

You might notice

• Getting asked only about your partner
• Feeling you have no right to be this upset
• Being expected back at work quickly
• Feeling like a visitor at your own baby’s loss

Hearing the heartbeat, seeing scans, choosing names, feeling kicks, building a crib: partners bond with a baby in many ways. Losing that future is a real bereavement.

Research suggests fathers report less intense distress than mothers but are more likely to use avoidance, such as drinking more alcohol.

Signs to watch for

• Drinking more than usual
• Working very long hours to avoid home
• Feeling numb or irritable most of the time
• Pulling away from your partner or friends

Letting your partner see some of your grief can bring you closer. Many people feel lonelier when they think their partner isn’t sad.

Small ways to let it out

• Telling one friend the truth about how you are
• Writing a letter to your baby
• Doing something physical, like a hard walk or run
• Crying, whenever it comes

Anger is a common part of grief, and it can be easier to show than sadness. It can help to name what’s underneath: often hurt, fear or helplessness.

Grief can affect the body, leaving you run down or getting sick more easily.

Some partners get through the first weeks in “doing mode” and only feel the loss later, when things quiet down. That doesn’t mean you didn’t care before.

You can ask

• To be in the room for conversations and decisions
• For time to hold your baby yourself
• For written information to read later
• What support is offered to partners

In a Swedish study of bereaved fathers, most were grateful when staff treated their baby with respect and recognised them as fathers. Staff who seemed indifferent left fathers hurt or angry.

Pick one or two people to pass on the news. A short message is enough. You can ask them to tell others that you’re not ready to talk yet.

Some non-birthing mothers feel their grief is doubted, by others or by themselves. Your love and your loss are real.

Some people find family, friends or colleagues less supportive. Finding LGBTQ+-friendly loss support can help.

If your family was built through a donor, surrogacy or co-parenting, the loss may also touch on money, time and long journeys. You might grieve the baby and the whole road it took to get there.

You might ask

• “How are you really doing with this?”
• “What’s the hardest part for you right now?”
• “Is there something you need from me this week?”
• “How would you like to remember our baby?”

It is common for one of you to struggle when the other feels steadier. Taking turns to lean on each other is okay.

If you keep arguing, feel distant, or can’t talk about the baby at all, a couples counselor who understands pregnancy and infant loss can help you find your way back to each other.

Ideas

• Tell your manager what happened, in a sentence
• Ask for flexibility for appointments and hard days
• Decide what you want colleagues to know
• Take short breaks when grief hits

Some couples want closeness right away. Others feel fear, sadness or pressure around sex, especially if trying again is on their minds. Go gently, talk openly, and remember that a hug or holding hands is intimacy too.

Partners may feel differently about whether or when to try again. In pregnancies after loss, mothers generally show more pregnancy anxiety than fathers, but partners can feel fear too.

Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support serves parents, siblings and family, with groups, peer companions and phone and email support.

Postpartum Support International runs free online groups for pregnancy and infant loss, and volunteers with lived experience of loss.

Things that help

• Ask “How are you doing?”, not just “How is she?”
• Invite them to something low-key, like a walk
• Say the baby’s name
• Text on hard dates, like the due date