Baby's smile gives moms a natural high
Looking at their smiling baby can trigger the reward centres of a mothers brain giving her a natural high, research has found.
Scientists asked 28 first-time mothers with to look at photos of their own and other young babies and monitored them with an MRI scanner as they did so.
The machine measured blood flow in the brain giving researchers a clue as to where and when brain activity takes place.
They found that seeing and image of their own child triggered a response in mothers and noted this was heightened if the baby was smiling.
Dr Lane Strathearn, who conducted the tests at Texas Children's Hospital said the response was similar to experiments into drug addiction: "It may be that seeing your own baby's smiling face is like a 'natural high.
"The relationship between mothers and infants is critical for child development.
"For whatever reason, in some cases, that relationship doesn't develop normally. Neglect and abuse can result, with devastating effects on a child's development."
The areas stimulated by the sight of their own babies were those associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Specifically, the areas associated included the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra regions, the striatum, and frontal lobe regions involved in emotion processing, cognition and motor/behavioral outputs.
"Understanding how a mother responds uniquely to her own infant, when smiling or crying, may be the first step in understanding the neural basis of mother–infant attachment," added Strathearn.
The research will be published in the American medical journal Pediatrics.
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I know looking at mine cheers me up. I defy any mom not to get a warm glow when her baby smiles at her.