Oxytocin, known as the hormone of love or trust, is responsible for the bond between the mother and the newborn baby. Scientists have shown that gentlemen who become fathers also release it in greater amounts, reports Biological Psychiatry
This discovery proves the importance of enabling fathers to interact with their child immediately after his birth in order to stimulate the neurohormonal system responsible for bonding in them, comments co-author Dr. Ruth Feldman from Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gana, Israel.
Research has shown that oxytocin – a hormone produced in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus – is involved in the formation of social relationships – between friends, acquaintances and lovers. Its role in creating an emotional bond between the mother and the newborn baby is best known – the hormone causes the maternal instinct to appear in the woman who gave birth to the baby.
Now it has turned out that oxytocin also helps men to play the role of father.
Researchers from Israel together with colleagues at Yale University in New Haven (Connecticut) analyzed data collected over many years on changes in the level of this hormone in 160 partners (80 couples) who became parents for the first time. The level of oxytocin was measured in them twice – after six weeks and six months after the birth of the offspring. Their parental behavior was also observed and assessed.
It turned out that with each measurement, the levels of oxytocin in the fathers did not differ from the levels found in the mothers.
It follows that although the secretion of oxytocin in mothers is stimulated by childbirth and lactation, the same process in fathers is influenced by other factors related to parenthood, comment the authors of the study.
Interestingly, a strong correlation was found between the concentration of oxytocin in the mother and in the father. And because a person’s levels of this hormone are constant, this finding suggests that certain mechanisms – social or hormone – regulate secretion in partners in an interactive way.
The researchers also observed that the level of oxytocin depended on the type of relationship that the parents formed with the child. It was higher in mothers who were more emotionally involved in raising their children, who looked at their children more often and showed them their positive feelings, e.g. through a tender touch. A higher concentration of oxytocin was also found in fathers who stimulated the child to explore the environment, drew his attention to various objects, etc.
As Dr. John Krystal of Biological Psychiatry wrote in his editorial comment, these differences may reflect culturally determined social expectations about the roles of mother and father, but may also indicate that oxytocin acts on other circuits in the brains of men and women.
Scientists hope that their discovery will help to better understand the role of disorders in the secretion of oxytocin in people who have problems fulfilling parental responsibilities towards their children. (PAP)