Oscar Chocolate Mould

Birth and love hormones

The first historical experience

The "scientification Love" entered a new phase in 1968 when Terkel and Rosenblatt virgin rats injected with blood of rats who came to give birth. Virgin rats behave as mothers, Terkel and Rosenblatt had thus shown that immediately after birth, a mother's blood contains hormones that can induce maternal behavior . They repeat their first experience with more elaborate techniques and thus confirm the importance of the period surrounding birth.

This historical experience was followed during the 1970's by a large number of other experimental studies designed to explore the behavioral effects of hormones whose levels fluctuate in the period surrounding the birth.

Rosenblatt and Siegel in the United States who worked on rats and Poindron and Le Neidre in France, working on sheep, particularly study the effects of female hormones belonging to the family of estrogen and progesterone effects. Zarrow and his team studied the effects of prolactin. An overview of these studies to conclude that estrogen stimulates maternal behavior and the brutal fall in rates of progesterone at the time of birth contribute to induce such behavior . As for prolactin, known as the hormone necessary for the secretion of milk, she appeared as a hormone essential for many aspects of maternal behaviors . So its injection in mice, even prepubescent leads him to build a nest.

A second historical experience

It took 11 years to pass after the first experience of Terkel and Rosenblatt before hearing about studies on the behavioral effects of the hormone oxytocin . This may seem surprising because all the doctors and midwives all know that this hormone is essential for childbirth and lactation. She stimulates uterine contractions to the birth of the baby and delivery of the placenta. She encourages the "reflex milk ejection" . It may be that because the peripheral effects mechanics of this hormone are too well known that researchers have taken time before thinking of the effects of possible behaviors. There is another explanation: the oxytocin should be injected directly into the brain to the effects on behavior is detectable. In 1979 began a new era of research, and Pedersen Prange year where we were taught that only enough oxytocin injection into the cerebral ventricles of mammals to induce maternal behavior.

The explosion of research triggered by this experience was illustrated by the publication in 1922 by the Academy of Sciences New York, in a 500-page book only contains articles on the behavioral effects of oxytocin. Niles Newton summarized the information on this new generation of qualified researchers oxytocin as the hormone of love ". It should be emphasized that whatever the facet of love one considers oxytocin is involved. She is involved in lactation, during mating the two couples secrete oxytocin. And yet we can conclude the work of verbal when we share a meal with other guests secrete the hormone love. In other words, sharing a meal is more than food, is also to establish links with colleagues.

Although behavioral effects of oxytocin were confirmed by a multitude of studies, E. Nissen and K.Uvnas-Moberg in Sweden, showed that oxytocin peak immediately after birth may be even higher before birth. This means that a woman secretes hormones ever love so immediately after the birth of a baby, to the extent, provided, that this birth has been an undisturbed birth.

Hormone never acts alone

There is no contradiction between our current understanding of oxytocin as a hormone of love and the comments of those who studied the effects of past behavior of other sex hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone. Remember that to be effective, a hormone secreted should not only still need to target organs or target cells have to work. Today known to activate estrogen receptors sensitive to oxytocin (and prolactin). We must always think in terms of hormonal balance. For example immediately after birth, oxytocin - a hormone of altruism-and prolactin-the mothering hormone "are completed.

Thus in 1979 it was revealed that the mother secretes morphine natural childbirth. Since then, the secretion of endorphins have been confirmed many times. At the beginning of the 80 learned that the fetus secretes also its own endorphins during childbirth.

Today, there is no doubt that during the first hour after birth, the brain of both the mother and baby are impregnated with opiates. The properties with opioids induce states of dependence are well known. So what is possible to glimpse as the beginning of a dependency - an addiction - can be established.

Even family hormones epinephrine (often present as aggression hormones) are all evidence an important role in the interaction between mother and baby immediately after birth. Under these physiological conditions, adrenaline maternal rates rise sharply for all the latest contractions preceding the birth . is the reason why "the reflex the fetus "begins , women tend to verticalize, giving the impression of being full of energy, with a sudden urge to grab someone or something. Suddenly she feels the need to drink some water, as a speaker before a wide audience. One of the effects of this adrenaline is that the mother is alert at birth of the baby . Enough to think of a mammalian female giving birth in a natural environment to understand the benefits of the hormones that make the watchful mother and even aggressive at the time when she should have on itself to eventually protect their babies. Aggression is an aspect of maternal love . Do not risk to take a cute baby who has just given birth!

add that the fetus also has mechanisms for survival during the last powerful contractions and that secretes its own hormones of the adrenaline family. A download of "noradrenaline" allows you to adapt to physiological oxygen deprivation that characterized the final phase of delivery . The most visible effect of this hormone is that state when delivery has been disrupted as little as possible, the baby is born with big eyes and large pupils . Human mothers are fascinated by the look of your newborn, as if the baby is given a signal. The crossing of looks is an important step in the beginning of the mother / child relationship in humans.

The complexity of the role of hormones of the adrenaline family mother / child interaction is a subject of study in full swing . A small number of experiments with animals begin to pave the way for further research. For example, is known that mice that do not have the gene responsible for the production of noradrenaline leave their babies scattered and dirty and neglected the feed, unless they have been injected before delivery a drug that produces adrenaline.

With newly acquired knowledge of behavioral effects of hormones involved in labor and delivery, today it is possible to interpret the concept of sensitive period introduced by ethologists. The different hormones secreted by the mother and baby during childbirth are not removed immediately after birth and each of them plays a specific role in the interaction between mother and baby.

(Source: Michel Odent: "L'amour scientifi" Les Mécanismes de l'amour Jouvence Editions, Août 2001, translated by the author of this blog

Informacióon connected: Orgasmic Birth Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b374qIk5QE