Blogging Parent

A place for me to talk about parenting and fatherhood.

Jul 10, 2008

A baby’s smile is like a drug

Now I know why my wife goes into a trance when Matthew smiles when he was a baby. Anyway, I’m just kidding about the trance part. But she’ll be totally engrossed.

Apparently, a new mother gets a high like a drug hit when her baby smiles back. And it can be as addictive as taking drugs. The research showed that the brain regions, called the substantia nigra, the striatum and the frontal lobe, light up when the mother looks at a photo of her smiling baby. These brain areas are also activated in experiments related to drug addiction.

Well, I’m sure the same applies to fathers as well. I know I get a high when Matthew smiles or when I look at his smiley photos. Maybe they should do a similar research on fathers.

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