Abstract
It is increasingly recognised that the early years of a child’s life are important for their
cognitive, emotional and social development. However, during this time, parents are at
increased risk of mental health difficulties. Parental mental health difficulties can impact
development of the parent-infant relationship and may be detrimental to long-term child
outcomes. Paper one of this portfolio is a qualitative study exploring the development of the
father-infant relationship in the context of paternal perinatal mental health difficulties. Ten
fathers were interviewed and data were analysed according to constructivist grounded theory
to develop a theoretical model describing fathers’ experiences. This model highlights how
fathers’ relationships with their child moved from a place of surviving, whereby they
experienced a practically focused relationship, towards connecting, whereby they felt a
reciprocal bond and emotional connection with their child. This provides important
implications for how fathers can be supported at an individual and service level. The second
paper is a systematic review of the effectiveness of compassion-related interventions for
improving parental self-compassion and mental health in the perinatal period. Findings of
eleven papers were summarised using narrative synthesis and the quality of studies was
assessed. All participants in the included studies were mothers. Results indicated that
interventions improved self-compassion. For mental health outcomes, findings indicated that
compassion-related interventions may be beneficial in improving parental depression, though
findings for other outcomes such as anxiety were less consistent, and studies were rated as
low quality overall. Directions for future research are outlined to improve the quality of the
evidence base in this area.