The effect of father's participation in newborn care during hospitalization on survival and attendance at follow-up clinics in a tertiary care facility

The traditional role of a man has been to provide protection and economic support to their families. This study examines the role of men on duration of hospitalization, neonatal survival, and follow-up attendance at a tertiary institution, south-west Nigeria. The study is a prospective cohort study involving fathers whose babies were admitted to a neonatal unit. We compared the fathers' provision of kangaroo mothers' care, financial support, readiness to stand in for mother and any other support with the outcomes of duration of hospital care, neonatal survival, and follow-up clinic attendance. We report adjusted odds ratio and 95% confidence interval of the outcome's variables. One eighty-eight of the 201 selected had complete dataset. The median age of the babies at admission was 1 day (IQR: 1, 5; range 1-28-days). The overall median duration of hospitalization was 6 days (range 0.4–56) days. The median and interquartile range (IQR) of neonates who received father support at admission was shorter 5 days (IQR: 3, 7) compared to 7 days (IQR: 4, 11) for those who did not (p = 0.006). The survival rate and clinic attendance for preterms whose fathers provided KMC did not reach significant level(p = 0.201). The father's financial support significantly affected neonatal survival and follow-up clinic attendance (P = <0.001). The father's willingness to care for infant while the mother rests was associated with survival (p = 0.023). On multivariable logistic regression, infants whose fathers provided financial support had 27.8 (aOR: 27.778, 95% CI: 7.353–100.0) odds of survival and 6.155 (2.205–17.182) odds of clinic follow-up compared to those without. Other support from fathers was 20.8 (95% CI 4.587–100) times more likely to attend clinic follow-up. Father participation in newborn care significantly improves clinic follow-up attendance, shortens hospital stays, and improved newborn survival. Family-centered-father-focused newborn-care, are required in tertiary nurseries.