Hormonal and behavioral responses to an infant simulator in women with and without children

Abstract

We investigated the impact of maternal status on hormonal reactivity and behavioral responses to an infant simulator in 117 women (54 primiparous, 63 nulliparous). The amount of affectionate touch and motherese were analyzed as behavioral measures of caregiving. Saliva was collected before and 10 min after interaction with the infant simulator to analyze oxytocin, testosterone, cortisol, and estradiol levels. Nulliparous women also provided information about their fertility motivation. Linear mixed models indicated that greater use of affectionate touch was associated with lower overall testosterone levels. Cortisol decreased in response to the interaction in both groups. In the primiparous group, the amount of affectionate touch associated inversely with cortisol levels, whereas in the nulliparous group such association was not found. Oxytocin or estradiol reactivity to the simulator did not differ between the groups, nor were these hormones associated with behavior. Higher fertility motivation in nulliparous women was related to more motherese, and lower testosterone levels. Our results indicate that the simulator elicits hormonal reactivity both in mothers and nonmothers, but the patterns of associations between caregiving behavior and hormonal levels may be partially different. These results encourage using the infant simulator to explore hormonal processes related to the transition to parenthood.

Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation towards infant emotions

“…levels than non-parents (Barrett et al, 2013;Grebe et al, 2019), and higher levels of testosterone have been associated with lower parenting quality Edelstein et al, 2017;Meijer et al, 2019;Weisman et al, 2014) although much of the research is done with male-only samples. Similar findings between parental sensitivity and cortisol have been published (Finegood et al, 2016;Sinisalo et al, 2022), although cortisol levels have also been positively associated with heightened responsiveness to infant odors (Fleming, Steiner, & Corter, 1997) and sympathy triggered by crying infant stimuli (Stallings et al, 2001). Estradiol levels, on the other hand, have been positively associated with higher parental sensitivity (Glynn et al, 2016), although not in fathers with high testosterone levels (Bakermans-Kranenburg et al, 2022).…”

“…There are no studies comparing mothers and non-mothers in their motivation towards infants, or examining whether motivational responses are associated with hormonal levels within these groups. However, our previous findings indicated a negative association between testosterone levels and fertility motivation (i.e., "baby fever") in non-mothers (Sinisalo et al, 2022). This suggests that motivation toward infants might be inversely related to testosterone levels.…”

“…This study is part of the TransParent project investigating changes in processing infant cues during the transition to parenthood (for sample size determination and power calculations, see Sinisalo et al, 2022). The data were collected during 2018 -2019.…”

“…At the time of the participation 81% of the mothers were breastfeeding their infant. For more detailed sample description, see Sinisalo et al (2022).…”

“…By comparing parents and non-parents it is possible to investigate whether parity has an effect on approach motivation towards infants and whether such approach motivation might be stronger in parents. In addition, during the transition to parenthood several key parenting related hormones undergo major changes and these changes have been associated with sensitive caregiving behavior (Edelstein et al, 2016;Sinisalo et al, 2022). In this light, hormonal factors are a potential mechanism underlying the presumable differences between parents and non-parents in their approach motivation towards infants.…”