The birth of a child, specially the first born, is a stage in the family life that brings with it changes both socially and professionally, changing previous balance. The transition to parenthood by the father implies skills to balance stress and difficulties.

To analyse the association of some socio-demographic and obstetrical factors and the functional status of first-time fathers in the six weeks after childbirth.

Cross-sectional study, with a consecutive non probabilistic sample of 204 first-time fathers from a health centre whose partner pregnancies, delivery and postpartum period without complications, and had a childbirth of a term newborn. The data were gathered in the six weeks postpartum from a self-administered questionnaire with socio-demographic and obstetrics questions and the Portuguese version of the Inventory of functional Status - fathers (IFS-F) after the approval of the ethic committee.

The first-time fathers showed better functional status in terms of professional activities, community, social activities and housekeeping. It appears that the first-time fathers showed poorer functional status at the level of educational training, care of newborn and personal care activities. The older first-time fathers tend to show better functional status at the level of household activities.

This study concludes that functional status of first-time fathers isn’t affected by educational level, residence, marital status or by the pregnancy vigilance place but partially influenced by the father's age and employment situation. This study provides information's to adequate care strategy to promote better functional status of first-time fathers in the postpartum period.