Books for Beards helping dads connect at the Women’s

19 July 2016 | Fundraising | Pregnancy | Research and clinical trials

In today’s Herald Sun Radford and Kirsten White with their gorgeous 3-year-old twins, Rupert and Maisie, who were born at the Women’s at 29 weeks. Picture Jay Town, Herald Sun.

The family was helping to highlight findings from new Melbourne research that revealed the fathers of premature babies suffer mental anguish at the same drastic rates as mothers, with more than one in three suffering depression soon after their child’s early arrival.

Grant McArthur writes: The study of 113 mothers and 101 fathers of babies born before 30 weeks at the Women’s documented their experiences every two weeks for the first six months.

The White twins were born by emergency caesarean. “There is a massive feeling of helplessness,” Mr White told the Herald Sun. “It is probably only the last year Kirsten and I have allowed ourselves to become more optimistic about what the future holds.”

Radford is now helping raise funds through a Books for Beards fundraiser for our Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Dad’s Group. 

Rad and Kirsten’s twins Rupert and Maisie spent 14 weeks at the Women’s. During that time Rad really valued the support of the NICU Dad’s Group which connected him with other dads in similar circumstances. He’ll be shaving off his (very bushy) beard this Father’s Day on 4 September. He’s well on the way to raising his target of $10,000.