Shattered Schemata and Fragmented Identities

Abstract

While pregnant women's views about antenatal screening have been widely researched, those of expectant fathers remain underexplored. Interviews were thus conducted with 12 men and 6 women, either during pregnancy or soon after birth. Findings suggested that the men started to construct a schema of their child and a paternal identity even before she/he was born. One of the paternal responsibilities men encountered was to participate in screening. However, men's ideas, beliefs, and feelings about being a father and about the future child were challenged by the receipt of screening results. Their child-schema became splintered into a wanted, imagined child and the at-risk fetus. Moreover, their paternal identity became fragmented into genetic and social components. Screening thereby caused some disruption in men's experience of impending fatherhood and of pregnancy, eliciting ambivalence and confusion. Further research is now required to explore the issues raised in the study.

Sharing Genetic Risk Information: Implications for Family Nurses Across the Life Span

“…Nevertheless, once their partner commenced antenatal genetic screening, many men described the “emotional rollercoaster” that ensued (Dheensa, Metcalfe, & Williams, 2013; Williams, Dheensa, & Metcalfe, 2011). Men’s ideas about the pregnancy were challenged causing ambivalence and confusion about their impending fatherhood and attachment to the unborn child (Dheensa et al, 2013). The long-term effects are not fully known but, undoubtedly, there are implications for the parent’s relationship with each other and for the father’s bond with their newborn child, which, if these issues are not addressed, might continue into the child’s early years, where, we know, the input and emotional connectedness of fathers have the capacity to affect development (Bronte-Tinkew, Ryan, Carrano, & Moore, 2007; Cabrera, Fagan, & Farrie, 2008).…”