How does oxytocin affect bonding?
Oxytocin is linked to bonding behaviours such as gazing, affectionate touch, positive affect and even using that soothing sing song-y baby voice that also comes out when we talk to cute animals. Research has shown that higher levels of oxytocin during pregnancy are predictive of these behaviours but also to feelings of attachment to your baby and the instinct to keep your baby close.
Bond with me. You can’t help it. I am so loveable!
Why is bonding important?
Bonding is important for a parent’s mental well-being and it eases our transition into parenthood. If we want to think about the bigger evolutionary picture, this is what has kept our species going for thousands of years. The parent-infant synchrony that is facilitated by oxytocin is beneficial to babies too because it helps them get the things they need for optimal development: protection, warmth and food.
Skin to skin promotes bonding. Ahhhhhh.
What role does oxytocin play in breastfeeding?
We learned in Part 1 that oxytocin is responsible for making the uterus contract. In fact, the love hormone causes muscle cells to contract in other contexts, such as orgasm and breastfeeding, but the name “contractility hormone” isn’t very catchy. At the beginning of a feed, the baby uses fast sucking motions to trigger the release of oxytocin which causes muscle cells to push the milk downwards towards the nipple in what is called the milk ejection reflex or let down. You can see and often hear this happen when a newborn switches from a fast sucking pattern to a slow one, pausing with their open mouth to let their mouth fill with milk before swallowing. The rise of oxytocin during breastfeeding also has a calming effect and can decrease stress. Whether this is a secondary effect or not doesn’t really matter, we know that it’s good for new parents to get bursts of anti-anxiety oxytocin in those tumultuous first weeks and beyond.How can I encourage oxytocin in the early days of parenting?
One of the best ways to boost oxytocin is skin to skin contact with your baby. This isn’t just a little bit of touching baby’s soft skin but rather a naked baby on your chest (diapered is generally preferred by parents!). Increasing oxytocin through skin to skin contact has countless benefits from soothing your baby to regulating their breathing and temperature to promoting bonding so soak up that goodness as often as you can. Eye contact with your baby and massage are other ways to increase oxytocin in both you and your baby. As mentioned above, breastfeeding can have big implications on oxytocin levels, this seems to be nature’s way of setting up attachment. When it’s not possible or if you choose not to breastfeed, bottle feeding can also be done in a way to promote oxytocin with plenty of eye contact, skin touching and connecting with your baby.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson doing skin to skin just oozes oxytocin.
How can a birth and/or postpartum doula help?
A doula can be an important part of your support network and can really help bring you back to the basics so that you can focus on bonding with your baby. Immediately after birth we facilitate skin to skin contact and suggest ways to soak up this golden time even amid hospital protocols. Once you are at home, a postpartum doula supports your family by ensuring everyone is fed, rested and cared for. By easing the chaos around you we encourage oxytocin to flow. We can show you how to wear your baby to get the benefits of closeness along side the ability to eat with two hands. We are there to talk through the expectations versus reality of parenting a newborn. Our goal is to remove a couple of things from your plate so that you can find your feet. It’s amazing what the disappearance of a laundry pile or a cleared sink can do for one’s ability to enjoy the time with your baby.
Laundry. So so much laundry. Let someone else fold it.