On the occasion of Father’s Day, Pampers launched its #DadFromDayOne campaign, an initiative to highlight the importance of fathers in the lives of their newborn babies from the very first day. The baby care brand believes that every dad should play an equal role in caring for his baby and has recently implemented ‘Share the Care’, a pioneering global parental leave programme through which new dads on the Pampers team receive eight weeks of paternity leave. This is a landmark movement towards equality and inclusion in the workplace and has been implemented across the parent company of Pampers, Procter & Gamble.
Many new dads are insecure about what to do in the crazy first few weeks after their child is born as it seems that the baby only needs their mother. Research shows that fathers who are involved during this time by being physically and emotionally present, tend to stay more active in the child’s life, feeling more secure. The last one year has also had a positive effect. Working from home gave dads a bigger day-to-day role and enabled them to witness their baby’s daily heroic moments.
The dynamic relationship between father and child is strengthened and, in the long run, this has proved to boost the child’s physical and mental development significantly. Fathers also show signs of less stress. Research shows that children are academically successful and have better social skills.
Research has shown that being at home with children for an extended period of time after birth can both strengthen
the parent/child bond and have positive, long-lasting outcomes for child development, such as improved cognitive and emotional outcomes and physical health. Beyond this, spending time with them in the early weeks without worrying about work duties is invaluable.
This also creates an even distribution of work between both parents, which is super helpful to new mothers who usually juggle taking care of a new life, household chores and work. Both parents can return to the office refreshed and ready.
Though paternity leave is becoming more common today and the role played by fathers during early childhood is being given its due, Pampers is hoping that announcing this campaign can inspire other companies to take the same impactful action of equal parental leave. In a breakthrough move last year, the UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (Mohre) amended a federal decree-law under which “all private sector employees are given paid parental leave for five working days to look after their babies, effective from the baby’s date of birth until he is six months old”.
Giving both new parents access to paid leave not only builds equality in the workplace but is simply healthier for families in the long term.
To learn more about Pampers, visit www.pampers.ae.