When Anna Machin realised science was skewed towards mums, she set out to change that - and discovered fatherhood comes with a raft of changes to the mind and body

Anna Machin specialises in studying close relationships Colin Kitchen

THE birth of Anna Machin’s first child didn’t go to plan. “Unfortunately, I suffered a haemorrhage, and it was a bit touch and go for a time,” she recalls. Her newborn daughter was shuttled off for specialist care, while Machin herself, who had passed out, received emergency attention. “I didn’t really see anything, whereas my poor husband, who was in the room, saw everything – blood flowing everywhere, about 30 members of staff rushing around, alarms going off… it was very, very dramatic.”

Afterwards, Machin was offered support and counselling. But no such offer was extended to her shaken husband. “And, actually, he was the one who needed it,” she says. This was evident when, even a year later, he was unable to talk about the birth, or even think about it, without crying.

Overlooking fathers in this way is harmful to these men and their families, says Machin, who is an anthropologist at the University of Oxford. “It struck me as unfair,” she says.

Close relationships, between parents and children, lovers or friends, are Machin’s specialist subject. So back at work after her daughter’s birth, her thoughts turned to new fathers. Like any academic, she began by digging through the research.

Yet while there was plenty to be found on mothers, Machin was amazed to find barely any research on fatherhood. The little there was seemed to focus on the negative impact of teenage or absent fathers. “There was nothing, absolutely nothing, about your average, standard dad who is around – divorced or not – who still sees his children and invests in them.” …