The DadPad products are for all fathers who want to give their child the very best start in life. Whether he is about to become a first-time dad or wants to ensure that he can still cover all the bases with a new addition to the family, the DadPad is the low-cost, high-value resource that all dads will want to always have within arm’s reach.

The Co-ParentPad is a quick reference, hard copy baby guide to support non-birthing (non-gestational) parents who identify as LGBTQI+. Developed by the team at Inspire Cornwall CIC, with support and guidance from LGBTQI+ parents and health professionals, it’s aimed at providing an LGBTQI+-affirming alternative resource to DadPad.

A whole range of current national initiatives, research papers and policies have, in recent years, called for greater whole-family engagement by maternity, perinatal and other related services, acknowledging the role, importance and needs of all those surrounding the child, and not just the birthing person.

After hearing from LGBTQI+ parents and parents-to-be who had encountered the DadPad, we realised that there was a gap here that wasn’t being filled by other organisations. In the same way that resources aimed at providing support to new dads need to be written to meet their specific needs and requirements, a resource for LGBTQI+ co-parents also needed to be carefully researched, written and focused.

The Co-ParentPad is for all non-birthing parents who identify as LGBTQI+ and who want to give their baby the very best start in life.

Whether they are about to become a first-time parent, or whether they want to ensure that they can still cover all the bases with a new addition (and however that baby is arriving within their family – birth, adoption, surrogacy, etc), the Co-ParentPad is the high-value resource that all LGBTQI+ parents will want to always have within arm’s reach throughout the perinatal period.

It’s also for perinatal healthcare professionals wanting more information and guidance on how best to support the LGBTQI+ parents-t0-be and new parents in their care, to ensure that those people feel safe, welcomed, comfortable and respectfully cared for.

As a new non-birthing parent, it’s common to feel excited – but also left out, unsure or overwhelmed. Traditional sources of information for new parents are commonly written for birthing mums in heterosexual relationships, which can make other new-parent demographics feel unseen, unsupported and/or discriminated against.

Taken as a whole, the Co-ParentPad aims to provide non-birthing LGBTQI+ parents with the practical skills and information that they need to help them become more confident in their role. This will enable them to not only feel included and involved – and seen – as a parent, but also to become an active and engaged co-parent, alongside the birthing parent.

As an ally to their partner, the reader will be best placed – and now sufficiently informed – to be able to spot any potential issues within the family unit and to know the steps to take to resolve these.  Knowledge of the roles played by the health professionals surrounding the family will encourage them to seek and welcome their advice and support when necessary.

Using the Co-ParentPad has the potential to bring many benefits, including helping and enabling the new parent to:

• reduce their own anxiety, by getting involved and gaining in confidence;
• learn how to create a strong bond and healthy attachment with their baby;
• build stronger family relationships by sharing the load and learning how to parent together;
• identify ways in which they can develop their own role as a parent; and
• recognise the signs of post-natal depression, and other common forms of perinatal mental ill-health, in both themselves and their partner, and learn how to get help early.

We selected ‘co-parent’ as the term to be used on this resource as we felt that it met most of the core requirements – i.e. it is:

• a gender-neutral term, to acknowledge that our intended readership would not fit into one straightforward category (unlike the DadPad, which has always been intended to be used by male dads in a heterosexual relationship with a birthing female); and
• it provides a clear message of recognition that this non-birthing partner was going to be on an equal footing with the birthing parent, and that the pair would be parenting together, as a team.

You can read more about our choice of term and the reasoning behind it here.