Why do women say things like "I could just eat you up" to their own and even other people's newborn babies? New research from the University of Montreal reveals a new scientific explanation behind the phenomenon of craving a baby's smell, and it's not unlike that of a drug addict needing their next fix.
“The olfactory—thus non-verbal and non-visual—chemical signals for communication between mother and child are intense,” Johannes Frasnelli, a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Montreal's Department of Psychology, said in a press release on the new study. “What we have shown for the first time is that the odor of newborns, which is part of these signals, activates the neurological reward circuit in mothers. These circuits may especially be activated when you eat while being very hungry, but also in a craving addict receiving his drug. It is in fact the sating of desire.”
In order to uncover the reasons behind why women desire the scent of newborns, researchers at the Department of Obstetrics at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany presented two groups of 15 women with the odors of other people's babies (collected from their PJs two days after birth) while subjecting them to brain imaging tests. The first group consisted of mothers, women who had given birth 3-6 weeks before the experiment began, and the second group consisted of women who had never given birth.
Both groups showed remarkable and "intense" brain activity in response to the odor of the newborn babies, though in the brains of the women who had just become mothers, there was far "greater activation in the dopaminergic system of the caudate nucleus," a reward circuit of the brain in which dopamine is an important neurotransmitter.
"This circuit makes us desire certain foods and causes addiction to tobacco and other drugs," said Frasnelli, who pointed out that "not all odors trigger this reaction, as "only those associated with reward, such as food or satisfying a desire, cause this activation."
Researchers concluded that mothers gain a chemical "reward" from cuddling and caring for their babies, including breastfeeding them and bonding with them, essential actions for the survival and well-being of a newborn. Notably, the latest experiment did not account for whether or not the new mothers were experiencing a hormonal response childbirth or if they were having such olfactory sensations due to experience and time spent with their newborns.
"What we know now and what is new is that there is a neural response linked to the status of biological mother," Frasnelli said.
The report on this study has been published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
