It is a scientific fact that men with babies have lower levels of testosterone than men without children. This process might start during pregnancy and scientists believe that at some point, the man’s hormones link with the woman’s hormones.
Researchers found that daddies to be experience hormonal changes, such as drops of testosterone but levels remained the same on cortisone and progesterone levels, hormones having to do with stress. Still, scientists haven’t yet been able to note exactly when the hormone decrease started, but they tend to believe it begins in the first stages of the pregnancy, said Edelstein, a psychologist and director of the Personality, Relationships, and Hormones lab at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The hormones are not affected after the baby is born and there is physical contact but its triggered by a mental process when thinking about becoming a parent, researchers believe.
In the study participated 29 couples who were expecting their first child. First time parents were chosen because they react differently from those who have had previous children. Researchers took saliva samples for both parents, several times along the pregnancy, starting from 12 weeks , 20, 28, and 36 weeks. The samples helped them to establish the levels of testosterone, estradiol, progesterone and cortisol. Results show that the future mother had increased levels of all hormones, during the pregnancy, but the future daddy’s testosterone and estradiol levels had declined.
The hormone fluctuation in both members of the couple could be due to psychological factors, becoming parents is exciting and stressful at the same time for both parents to be. But there is definitely a certain type of connection between the parents.
Another point of the study showed that men who had a larger decrease of testosterone have reported to bonding more with their kid and showing more support to his wife. A plausible explanation would be that after becoming a father men have to learn to be more nurturing and provide loving support to their baby and this would be impossible with higher testosterone levels.
“This suggests that there’s some kind of benefit to these changes, that there may be something that’s helpful about having declines in testosterone,” said Edelstein.
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