Some stress is good for hands-on fathers
Fifty years ago men had little to do with childcare. When I asked my husband to come along with me for the birth of my sons there was shock and horror.
It’s so different now. Almost all dads are active parents. How has this revolution come about?
A new US study from Notre Dame University, in Indiana, has found the stress hormone cortisol surges in many new fathers, not in a bad way but a good way.
It may signal that they’re going to be more hands-on dads.
The paradox is the more nervous a new father is about holding his baby for the first time, the more likely he is to share parenting duties.
The truth is men, too, experience hormonal changes around the birth of a child – and it may determine what kind of dad they become.
Women’s pregnancy hormones soar during pregnancy, and it can take up to nine months for their hormones to come back down to normal after giving birth. Dads experience hormonal effects of a new baby too, some even get postpartum depression.
To cope with all this stress, the body releases cortisol, the hormone that switches on our fight-or-flight reflex where we become ready for action, alert and vigilant, which is all a crucial part of baby care.
Up to a certain level of stress is good for us and improves our performance – very necessary when looking after a new baby.
The Notre Dame team took saliva samples from nearly 300 fathers, one of which was collected while the new dads were holding their newborns on the first day.
Follow-up surveys over the next four months showed the dads who’d had stress hormone surges while they held their babies for the first time were more likely to spend more time playing with and caring for their babies.
I’ve always encouraged new dads to hold their new baby within the first hour after the birth, shirtless, so that baby gets close to that reassuring masculine smell and dads bond in that instant as strongly as mums.
“We know that in mothers, an increase in cortisol makes them more responsive to an infant’s cues,” says Dr Patty Kuo. She and her team suspect the same might be true in these men.
“But being able to read your baby’s cues accurately and responding the way the baby would want is key to the baby developing a healthy attachment, so this could be crucial.”
I’ll say.