- Posted June 22, 2026
Short Videos Help First-Time Dads Learn Newborn Safety Basics
Brief videos can help first-time fathers better protect their newborns, a new study says.
Videos on safe sleep, infant crying and car safety helped educate dads on ways they can guard against injury, researchers reported June 19 in the journal Pediatrics Open Science.
“New fathers often report feeling like bystanders in healthcare settings, with parenting supports primarily focused on the mother from pregnancy through the postpartum,” said lead researcher Mikaela Thompson, a medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
“Our study recognizes the importance of involving fathers in child health, and especially in infant injury prevention, from the very beginning of becoming a father,” Thompson said in a news release.
Unintentional injuries are among the leading causes of death among young children, including those related to unsafe sleep and poor car seat safety, researchers said in background notes.
For the new study, researchers recruited 167 first-time fathers and had them watch brief videos featuring a real dad and his 2-week old infant. These videos were shown during their visit to the hospital’s newborn nursery.
“The videos in our study on key injury prevention topics are a novel educational intervention soon after infant birth that offers unique opportunities to reach fathers who may not be able to come to infant healthcare visits,” said senior researcher Dr. Craig Garfield, a professor of pediatrics and medical social sciences at Feinberg.
“We show that the newborn nursery is indeed a viable setting for father-focused instruction — fathers may actually be looking for this sort of information at this time,” Garfield said in a news release.
Surveys completed before and after the videos showed that fathers’ knowledge about safe sleep and infant crying improved significantly after the video intervention.
Men were nearly 10 times more likely to know about safe sleep and six times more likely to understand when and why babies might cry.
For example, they were more likely to know that there’s not always a reason for a baby crying, and that babies cry most often in the late afternoon or evening, the study said.
They also were more likely to know that babies should not sleep in an infant car seat, or in a swing or rocker, researchers said.
The new dads also had a high degree of knowledge regarding the use of a rear-facing car seat.
However, this new info did not fully stick after their babies left the hospital. Dads' working knowledge dwindled over time.
“Our finding suggests that at-home reinforcement or ‘booster sessions’ might be needed to maintain learning and support behaviors, especially in the first year,” Garfield said.
“Text messaging might help support study retention,” he continued. “In the future, video-based, father-focused intervention could be expanded to other clinical settings, such as the neonatal intensive care unit and well-child visits.”
More information
The Cleveland Clinic has more on preparing for fatherhood.
SOURCES: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, news release, June 19, 2026; Pediatrics Open Science, June 19, 2026
