Father of five and a psychologist with the Fiji Police Force, Nicholas Fuata.

When a baby arrives, attention often centres on the mother and newborn, leaving fathers overlooked. Many quietly navigate their own emotions, uncertain about how best to support their partner or child.

At a recent meeting in Suva focusing on new parents’ mental health, two men broke the silence on a rarely discussed issue, how fathers cope with postpartum depression in their partners, and sometimes, in themselves.

Nicholas Fuata, a father of five and a psychologist with the Fiji Police Force, shared his personal experience.

“And I observed my wife’s birth. I went through that. It was stressful for me too. That was my postpartum depression.”

Fuata emphasised the importance of strong family relationships.

“I want to say also is it’s important for the lady to have a good relationship with the father. From a communal perspective. And so that’s what I wanted to share. It gave me a way of seeing how women recover.”

Anglican Church representative Mataiasi Tagicakibau says such conversations are equally needed within faith-based spaces.

He highlighted that more education on postpartum depression at the church level could make a significant difference.

Tagicakibau noted that many people remain unaware of this important issue affecting countless women in society, and urged men to better understand what their partners go through when starting or expanding a family.

“I’m a father of two daughters. I wouldn’t like to see and hear them go through what you’ve been through on the women’s ministry, on healing process. Because they don’t talk about it. And on the men, more on to understanding. The choices that we make trying to be with our wives and may have more kids to understand what the mothers are going to go through and how can we better our service to our wives.”

Stakeholders at the dialogue agreed that including fathers in these conversations and equipping them with the right knowledge and emotional tools is essential to building a new model of fatherhood that is informed, emotionally present, and deeply connected.

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