Forget about advice booklets on how to be a good dad. For the first time NZ dads celebrating the birth of a new baby will be greeted and acknowledged at the hospital by a resource produced by other fathers.
Father & Child brings you the New Babies Edition, free of charge, through the Bounty Birth Pack in hospitals in Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington!
The mag is in typical Father & Child style: a mix of factual articles and first-hand stories, although the latter provide the bulk for this special edition. What’s it like to be a new dad? To add a new baby to the family? Or to start a second family? Are dads still expected to be main providers? Fathers talk about these unique experiences and describe that unique mix of joy, wonder and worries.
The design is sponsored by Christchurch-based Strategy Advertising and Design, an award-winning firm considered to be a leader in the design market. This first issue was made possible by donations from the Canterbury Community Trust, ASB Community Trust and the Lion Foundation.
This first issue has a print run of 15,000 copies, which is expected to last 6 months at current birth rates. The Trust aims to make this publication ongoing and nationwide. For this, advertising support will be needed.

The Father & Child project to establish an ongoing ‘New Dads Edition’ of Father & Child magazine has come closer to realisation after a significant funding boost from the Canterbury Community Trust as well as support from the Lion Foundation.
Other funders have also been approached to support seed funding for a special edition of Father & Child whicht will be distributed through the ‘Bounty Birth Pack’ to hospitals nationwide.
Eventually the publication, aimed to have 52 full-colour pages, is to become self-funding largely through advertising. It will cover issues and stories around childbirth and the early months from a father’s point of view.
Father & Child Trust had produced a New Dads Edition in 2000, which was distributed through Canterbury only and could not be sustained as an ongoing publication at the time.