This Is Your Brain on Fatherhood: Dads Experience Hormonal Changes Too, Research Shows - Cosmic Log
Oxytocin has been called the “love hormone,” even though its effect isn’t always that lovely. It’s thought to deepen the bond that a mom has with her newborn. But what about the dads, who don’t get pregnant or breastfeed? It turns out that a father’s interactions with his children produce a similar rise in oxytocin levels.
Researchers have found that emotionally involved fathers feel other hormonal effects: reduced levels of aggression-promoting testosterone; higher levels of prolactin, a lust-squelching hormone that shows up in women during breastfeeding and in men after sexual climax; and higher levels of vasopressin, a hormone linked to bonding as well as the maternal stress response.
It turns out that fathers get many of the same rushes that mothers do from parenthood — but the payoff depends on proximity and interaction. For example, researchers see the effect if the child sleeps with the parents, if the father recognizes and responds to the baby’s cries, if Dad plays with the kids. When that proximity isn’t present, the fatherhood effect isn’t as strong.
“There seems to be some kind of fundamental social-neurobiological framework that comes into play when fathers interact with their kids,” said Lee Gettler, an anthropologist at Notre Dame who worked on the prolactin study.
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