The importance of dads in the early years

The Movember Foundation's survey identified that around one in five men in the UK lost close friends within a year of becoming a father. It also found that a quarter of new dads felt isolated and three-quarters said their stress levels rose in the first year of being a father.

Consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist Prof Paul Ramchandani presented his study on Fathers, Play & Depression, which identified that depression is common in dads and affects up to 10 per cent of all fathers who have a new baby.

In line with the feedback from local dads, Ramchandani's work had shown a 20 per cent increased risk of depression affecting the developmental outcomes for children, and this can be associated with a more withdrawn paternal behaviour possibly leading to less spontaneous play, which can have an impact on cognitive development.

A systematic review of the involvement of fathers in play found that father-infant play is consistently associated with a higher rate of positive child outcomes including emotional, behavioural and cognitive development, so it's critical that dads with depression receive the support they need, when they need it.

Fatherhood expert Dr Anna Machin discussed how levels of testosterone decrease when men become new fathers to enable him to be more family focused and better able to parent. She also presented on the biological changes in the structure of fathers' brains that can affect nurturing, risk detection, problem solving, planning and relationships. These changes can help the father to make deep bonds with their children.

Dads are also very impactful on language and executive function development within children, and at the pre-school age dads can have a greater impact on this than mums - which shows that dads universally have a role scaffolding their child's entry into the world beyond the family.

Interestingly, it is not just biological fathers who experience these changes - the impact on the child's development and the changes in the dad's brain also occur with the person who has "stepped up" to do the job.

It is because of the important role that fathers play that the centre has a key focus on supporting fathers through a range of programmes.

These include Fathers Reading Every Day, Mellow Dads and a Dads 4Life group, which supports dads of all ages to support each other and brings them together to do hand-on projects such as building furniture for children's centres, designing early years reading spaces in libraries and working in community gardens.

• Merle Davies is director of the Blackpool Centre for Early Child Development