The World Health Organisation has just declared that all women should have the right to a birth partner.

This is a more sentimental post than our normal reviews of recent research! It is a link to 35 amazing photographs of fathers being birth partners, something that has become a social norm in many developed countries.

35 Raw Birth Photos Of Dads Welcoming Their Babies Into The World

We have argued that this has arisen because birth was taken out of the home and put in an unfamiliar environment, so women took people they could with them for love and security – and in a world where most families live in very small units, this was most often (but never always) the father of the baby.

But when the father is present as a birth partner, bonding starts between father and baby, as strong hormonal and neurobiological changes are triggered in him. So strong are these that many men describe it as the most intense experience of their lives. These photos capture this.

Lead photo is one of the 35 by Public Kiss Photography.