The winner of the º£½ÇÂÒÂ× Student Essay Competition.
The winner of the 2026 º£½ÇÂÒÂ× Student Essay Competition was Abhishek Viswanath – King’s College London. You can read the winning essay below.
Runners up
- Samuel Brown – University of Cambridge
- Ken Mackay – University of Aberdeen
- Manu Moses – University of Exeter
- Aaliyah Riaz – University of Manchester
A Student’s Experience of Neonatology
by Abhishek Viswanath – King’s College London
During my first ward round in NICU, I noticed him immediately - not because he stood out, but because he was trying so hard not to. While the consultant explained his daughter's overnight deterioration to his wife, he stood pressed against the wall, recording every word on his phone. Born at 25 weeks with necrotising enterocolitis, the surgical team was reviewing her. When asked for questions, only the mother spoke. The father remained silent, lips moving slightly, rehearsing questions he would not ask. Later, I found him transferring recordings into a notebook - medical terms, dosages, oxygen requirements meticulously organised. Each day colour-coded by consultant, growth charts plotting weight in grams. When he saw me looking, he mumbled about his wife needing rest.
That notebook changed how I saw the unit. I began noticing what I had previously overlooked: the taxi driver coming straight from night shifts, still in work clothes. Fathers alternating NICU visits with school runs, arriving breathless. Others at 5am catching handovers before their own shifts. Yet during formal discussions, they remained peripheral - unnamed, unaddressed, unacknowledged. As someone from a South Asian background, this felt uncomfortably familiar. In my family, hospitals were women's spaces during childbirth. My father waited outside during my sister's birth. Men provided practical support such as money and handy work, but emotional engagement with babies was feminine territory. I had unconsciously carried these assumptions into medical school.
The literature challenged these preconceptions. Studies show up to 40% of NICU fathers experience clinically significant anxiety or depression, yet fewer than 10% receive psychological support. While we routinely screen mothers using Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scales, fathers navigate trauma invisibly (1).
One Thursday crystallised this institutional blindness. The consultant explained that overnight scans showed extensive bilateral haemorrhages. The mother began crying immediately; a nurse embraced her, providing tissues. The father went rigid, jaw clenched, staring at scan images. Nobody addressed him directly. Later, I saw him in the patients’ kitchen, hands shaking, spilling milk. "I fix things," he said quietly. "But I can't fix her."
This pattern repeated throughout my placement. Consent forms handed reflexively to mothers. Updates beginning with "How is Mum doing?". Questions about bonding directed solely at mothers while fathers stood unnamed beside them. Studies demonstrate engaged fathers improve breastfeeding rates, reduce maternal postnatal depression, and enhance infant neurodevelopmental outcomes (2, 3). When fathers participate in skin-to-skin care, premature infants show improved weight gain and shorter hospital stays (4). Yet our clinical culture treats fathers as optional supporters rather than essential caregivers.
I began implementing small changes. Using both parents' names during presentations. Directing questions equally. Simple gestures, but the response was profound. Fathers who had stood silently for weeks suddenly asked questions they'd been researching alone.
The most revealing moment came during my final week. After the consultant explained improved feeding tolerance to the mother, she turned to me: "Any questions from you?"
"I noticed Dad taking notes. Did you have questions about the feeding plan?" The room shifted. The father pulled out his phone, scrolling through saved articles. "I've been reading about reflux positioning and paced bottle feeding. Would that help with her bradycardias during feeds?"
The consultant's expression shifted to respect. He had identified the exact connection between feeding difficulties and heart rate drops. They discussed feeding strategies properly. The mother looked surprised. She had not known he had been researching this deeply.
"That's exactly right," the consultant said. "Would you like to demonstrate it to the nurses later?"
His relief was overwhelming - finally, someone acknowledged his expertise. These fathers weren't disengaged but self-taught experts operating without recognition. The warehouse supervisor who could interpret blood gases. The accountant who had memorised bradycardia patterns. The teenager who had learned exactly how to position his daughter to minimise reflux.
Some trusts have already tried to tackle this issue. Birmingham Women's Hospital has introduced father-specific support groups while Leeds has implemented dedicated spaces where fathers can stay overnight. Basic acknowledgments that families include fathers. These interventions are part of a broader movement toward family-centred and father-inclusive care in UK neonatal units (5).
My placement ended with a discharge I will never forget. The father with the notebook from my first day, his daughter was finally going home after 89 days. She had overcome NEC requiring bowel resection, chronic lung disease, and grade II IVH. Discharge planning focused entirely on the mother - medications, feeding schedules, follow-up appointments. He stood silently, photographing information sheets. When the mother asked me to take a family photo, through her phone I saw it starkly: she held the baby confidently while he stood beside them, hands uncertain, like a visitor in his own family portrait.
"Could Dad hold her too?" I suggested.
The transformation was immediate. As he held his daughter, without wires and tubes for the first time, his face changed from uncertainty to wonder. At discharge, he presented his data to the nurses, those colour-coded notebooks I had seen on day one. Everyone was amazed by his dedication. They should not have been surprised. He had been doing this work all along. We just had not been looking. Before leaving, he pulled me aside. "Thank you for seeing me." Those four words encapsulated everything.
That is the lesson I will carry forward: fathers in NICU are not visitors or helpers. They are parents, equally traumatised, equally devoted, equally essential. Our role is not just to save babies but to support complete families. And complete families include fathers who have been standing in the shadows for far too long, keeping meticulous notes that nobody reads, carrying a love that nobody acknowledges - waiting for someone, anyone, to finally see them.
References
- Provenzi L, Santoro E. The lived experience of fathers of preterm infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: a systematic review of qualitative studies. J Clin Nurs. 2015;24(13-14):1784-94.
- Sarkadi A, Kristiansson R, Oberklaid F, Bremberg S. Fathers' involvement and children's developmental outcomes: a systematic review of longitudinal studies. Acta Paediatr. 2008;97(2):153-8.
- Alsaç SY, Coşkun AB. A qualitative exploration of fathers' perceived roles and emotional experiences during their infant's hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit. J Pediatr Nurs. 2025;86:27-34.
- Shorey S, He HG, Morelius E. Skin-to-skin contact by fathers and the impact on infant and paternal outcomes: an integrative review. Midwifery. 2016;40:207-17.
- Redshaw ME, St CHKE. Family centred care? Facilities, information and support for parents in UK neonatal units. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2010;95(5):F365-8.