We talk a lot about maternal mental health postpartum. But we do not talk enough about dads.

In this episode, my husband joins me for an honest conversation about paternal mental health, birth trauma, pressure, and what it felt like to become a father while navigating medical complications and the early days of the pandemic.

We discuss the silent expectations placed on fathers to be “the strong one,” to go back to work quickly, to provide, and to hold everything together — often without anyone asking how they are actually doing.

This episode is about normalizing the fact that postpartum mental health affects both parents.

We talk about:

• Why paternal mental health is often overlooked

• The impact of traumatic birth experiences on dads

• The pressure to return to work quickly, especially in medicine

• Sleep deprivation, financial stress, and identity shifts

• How the pandemic intensified anxiety for healthcare workers

• Why therapy is not just for crisis, but for maintenance

• Reparenting yourself while parenting your children

• How prioritizing mental health makes you a more present partner and parent

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00;00;00;00 – 00;00;19;25

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the follow up. Where we revisit conversations in less time than it takes for you to question your entire existence after you’ve been up all night with a newborn. Today’s fall is an important one. We talk a lot about maternal mental health on the show, and for good reason, because mentally healthy mothers have positive outcomes for their kids.

 

00;00;19;27 – 00;00;41;08

Dr. Mona

But postpartum mental health is not just a mom issue. About 7 to 9% of new fathers experience postpartum depression, and many more struggle with anxiety, pressure, and silence around it. I have a feeling that percentage is actually much higher due to stigma, which inhibits families from coming forward about their concerns. So I had my husband on the show.

 

00;00;41;10 – 00;01;00;27

Dr. Mona

Amazing dad, E.R. doctor extraordinaire, but also someone who has dealt with depression and anxiety and is on a mission to normalize these conversations. As a male, as a South Asian male, and as a doctor, we talk about what happens to mental health after a baby arrives for both moms and dads. The pressure on men to be the strong one.

 

00;01;00;29 – 00;01;20;07

Dr. Mona

Going back to work quickly, birth trauma, sleep deprivation, the cultural messages that keep men from asking for help, and how consistent therapy has changed both of us, not just as individuals, but as partners and parents. This one is honest, it’s personal, and I think it’s going to open up a conversation. We do not have enough. And I want to hear from you.

 

00;01;20;12 – 00;01;37;20

Dr. Mona

Do you want more regular episodes with my husband? If so, please leave a review. Say that you do. Share this on your social. Tag me and say that you want more conversation. So I know we have a lot of ideas on how we could bring him in more consistently without losing the incredible expert conversations you love on the show.

 

00;01;37;23 – 00;01;55;13

Dr. Mona

So just please tag PedsDocTalk the PedsDocTalk podcast. Share this episode and the full episode. Subscribe. Download all the things. And yes, more and more and more of that helps the show continue to grow. Let’s get into it.

 

00;01;55;16 – 00;02;12;10

Dr. Mona

In your opinion, why do you think there’s a huge mental health struggle postpartum for women and also men? Because I think, like we’ve talked about, the focus tends to be on maternal mental health. But why do you think there is such a shift here? And maybe even throwing in your personal experience?

 

00;02;12;12 – 00;02;47;29

Gaurav

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think that we spend so much time, like you said, focusing on moms, health and the baby’s health. And everyone is super excited. For good reason, too, right? It’s an exciting time, but it’s also a very stressful time as well as you and I can both attest to. And I think that society at large has placed a lot of the burden, unfortunately, on the mom, to not only be the one who, you know, birthed the child, but to be there right in the beginning for that bond, that connection, that skin to skin.

 

00;02;47;29 – 00;03;22;03

Gaurav

Right. It happens immediately for the mom first. And, you know, the dads are kind of left waiting for their turn. And, you know, speaking from my own experience, the birth of our son was quite traumatic. Like I’m sure every one of your guests knows about, and I think that in the drama of everything that was going on, that there was no time to focus on my mental health or what was going on in my own head or how I was, I was dealing with the adversity that was in front of me.

 

00;03;22;05 – 00;03;37;15

Gaurav

I was too busy trying to check in on you and trying to check in on Ryan and running back and forth from one ICU to the next. Just trying to see if I could be of any assistance or any help, or try to figure out what was going on. Now, I’m not saying that everyone out there who’s listening is going to have a traumatic delivery.

 

00;03;37;16 – 00;03;58;06

Gaurav

I hope that no one has a traumatic delivery out there, but a society at large. I think that, you know, the paternal side of things just kind of gets left to the wayside. We’re kind of expected to be the stronger one. The ones that go back to work sooner, the ones that are there to kind of keep the foundation of the home together.

 

00;03;58;09 – 00;04;18;23

Gaurav

And I think that it’s important to have a conversation around, well, you know, parenting is a two person job in most cases. And if you do have a significant other, you know, this is a brand new experience for them too. Yeah. And I it’s good to ask questions and check in from time to time. Hey, dad. How are you doing?

 

00;04;18;26 – 00;04;45;15

Gaurav

How are you handling this new routine? How are you handling the lack of sleep or the pressure to go back to work and provide, or just not knowing what to do and when to, you know, chime in and when to realize when you need to back off. I think that a lot of guys out there are just waiting for them to be told what to do in that situation when the new baby arrives, like, just tell me where I need to go.

 

00;04;45;17 – 00;05;05;02

Gaurav

Tell me what I need to pick up. What do I need to hear from the store? And I think it’s so much more complex than that. I think that lives are transforming as we’re talking it, moment by moment, and I think that a lot of men would appreciate a check in from time to time mentally, to see how they’re adjusting to this new reality.

 

00;05;05;04 – 00;05;17;07

Gaurav

And I think just unfortunately, too much attention is placed on the mom and the child. And unfortunately, dads just are expected to just keep that sign of, you know, that performer.

 

00;05;17;08 – 00;05;18;20

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah.

 

00;05;18;22 – 00;05;51;06

Gaurav

And be the strong one through this process. But if anything that I’ve learned through having two children is that it can be just as dramatic and traumatic for me as a male as it can be for you being the mother and the one who’s physically giving birth to our child and all the issues that you went through and you can attest to this, it was very mentally difficult for me to be present during those moments when we didn’t know what was happening.

 

00;05;51;08 – 00;06;08;01

Gaurav

And in the days after that, I mean, you talk about the stress of the delivery of our son two months before the pandemic began, and I’m an E.R. doctor who has to go to work while everyone else is, you know, told to stay home.

 

00;06;08;03 – 00;06;27;07

Dr. Mona

Well, also, I mean, also, you had to. I mean, I don’t know if people really realized this. You didn’t. You obviously, you don’t get paternity leave. We already know that maternity leave in the United States, for many of us is, you know, not a good situation, but you basically had to find people to cover your shifts. When I was in the hospital, you know, with Ryan and then also with Vera because I had postpartum complications with her.

 

00;06;27;07 – 00;06;59;21

Dr. Mona

So let alone the pandemic. But you had to go back into a stressful job. And I think anyone, whether you’re a male or female, going back to a stressful job when you have a newborn and especially you add on layers of trauma if there is one. But regardless if there’s birth trauma or not, having to go back so soon to a workplace, especially a stressful one where there’s no flexibility when you have sleep deprivation, when you have to adjust to a new life with a new being to take care of, I think is just a recipe of a mental health hit.

 

00;06;59;24 – 00;07;15;20

Dr. Mona

I don’t know if you felt that. And you know, that balance of having to experience what we did and then all of a sudden have to go back into a job and, you know, go to work and try to focus there. Do you think that had an impact on your mental health at all? Regardless of the pandemic alone?

 

00;07;15;22 – 00;07;43;24

Gaurav

Immensely. Yeah. You know, like you said, there is really no such thing as paternity leave. At least in medicine, that I could find, right? Sure, I could not go to work, but I’m also then not getting paid as well. So lucky enough for me, I had a supportive boss who was to find coverage for me, but if I remember correctly, like I think I only requested two weeks off.

 

00;07;43;29 – 00;07;44;24

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;07;44;26 – 00;08;08;04

Gaurav

The birth of our son and then it was right back to work. Now I had that extended because of the circumstances that we were going through, but I have colleagues who just took a week off and then were back at work. So there’s that pressure that well, if you’re not showing up for work, you’re not getting paid and bills still have to be paid and all that kind of stuff.

 

00;08;08;07 – 00;08;35;10

Gaurav

And then you throw in the layer of the stressful nature of the job in and of itself. And of course, it’s a recipe for disaster. And I’ll tell you a funny story. I think it was just a little bit after the pandemic began, and I was working in the hospital, and you and Ryan were at home, and I was just sitting there kind of really stressed out and anxious about just Covid in general, and didn’t know what Covid was really, and was afraid to get it and bring it home.

 

00;08;35;12 – 00;08;58;20

Gaurav

And my colleague who’s sitting next to me could tell that I was not like mentally doing so well and it’s a funny story in that she physically took her prescription pad out and wrote me a script for Lexapro for which if those of you listening don’t know, is an antidepressant. She was like, here, take these. These will be temporary.

 

00;08;58;22 – 00;09;11;11

Dr. Mona

Like like like sugar, like here. Like throwing it out like candy. Because, I mean, of how much you were, everyone was going through, I mean, the pandemic, the amount of anxiety. And, you know, especially being a healthcare worker and even me, if you’re not, it was so, so high.

 

00;09;11;13 – 00;09;13;27

Gaurav

Right? It was like giving a kid a bag of Skittles and being like.

 

00;09;14;01 – 00;09;14;15

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah.

 

00;09;14;15 – 00;09;15;19

Gaurav

I mean.

 

00;09;15;22 – 00;09;21;14

Dr. Mona

Yeah, everyone needs this. We all need some Lexapro basically in the water supply right now because of the anxiety with the pandemic.

 

00;09;21;16 – 00;09;54;13

Gaurav

Yeah. At the time, I had not yet begun my healing journey from all the the trauma yet. And so even if you think that you’ve got everything locked in right now and you think that everything is great, there’s no harm in checking in with someone who’s professionally trained, and who’s been doing this for quite a while and be like, hey, I just want to see if there’s things that I could be working on in this area or that or that could be helpful to me.

 

00;09;54;16 – 00;10;06;19

Gaurav

And so it doesn’t always have to be at a moment of crisis. Like, I can see myself even when times are going great, still wanting to continue therapy as just a maintenance kind of.

 

00;10;06;24 – 00;10;34;25

Dr. Mona

I mean, you do right? Like you go every week, even when things aren’t like you have nothing really to say. Like you’re literally going and you kind of just catch up and really learn something else. But same with me. Ever since January 2020, for being consistent and going not just for, again, treatment, but for prevention. Right? Like maintenance, like I want to get in a good place where I can handle the big things and the small things that come into our life and be healthier mentally, not just physically.

 

00;10;34;25 – 00;10;54;19

Dr. Mona

You know, we work out, we do this, we eat, eat balanced. But we really need to focus on that mental health. And would you say that or how would you say therapy and prioritizing mental health has benefited you as a father, you know, partner physically, what would you say is your final message as to how that really has helped you be a better person?

 

00;10;54;21 – 00;11;42;14

Gaurav

Well, I think it’s a couple of things. It’s the accountability. It’s the ability to know that there is a safe space for me to express my needs. And again, my story is very unique in that my childhood is quite unique. That I don’t know if a lot of people could relate to, but I know that the story of my own childhood and the person that my childhood groomed me to be needed help and needed desperately, and activities such as therapy, such as yoga and things of that nature have helped me understand that well, there’s not something actually wrong with me.

 

00;11;42;14 – 00;12;07;00

Gaurav

It’s just the way I was thinking or behaviors were modeled to me. Were incorrect, and I can actually change those things moving forward that there isn’t something functionally actually wrong with me, which is what I thought was the case for a good majority of my life, that, oh, this is just who I am. This is just me. Well, no, this is not just me.

 

00;12;07;00 – 00;12;33;28

Gaurav

This is just what I experienced. And this is the story I made up about that experience. Well, I can go back and I can’t change the events of what happened to me, but I can change the story that I tell myself about it. I could change the way I show up as the father to our two children. I can model those behaviors that I wish that could have been modeled to me, to our kids.

 

00;12;34;00 – 00;13;22;29

Gaurav

And so therapy helps me stay accountable in those parts of my life because for me, it’s an ongoing process. Like as I’m parenting our children, I’m also reprinting myself at the same time. Yeah. And that’s why I like to say I’ll be in therapy probably for the rest of my life. Not because I feel like I’m that broken, but I feel like that’s how I’m going to continue to stay the most present, the most capable, the most content, the most fulfilled person that I can be is having the availability of someone to walk me through these processes, moving forward, and walk me through these thoughts and events in my life that are going to continue

 

00;13;22;29 – 00;13;27;10

Gaurav

to come.

 

00;13;27;13 – 00;13;48;21

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real, relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

 

00;13;48;28 – 00;14;04;12

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at Peds Doc Talk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.