Oxytocin has been called "the love hormone" because levels of it rise in women during childbirth and breast-feeding, and it is thought to facilitate bonding. It is present in men, too, and everything from eye contact to orgasm can increase its amount.

But does the hormone stimulate bonding in new fathers as it does in new mothers? A new study in the journal Biological Psychiatry, the first to look at what its authors describe as “the transition to fatherhood,” suggests that it does. And it also suggests a biological basis for the fact that men and women so often relate differently to infant and toddlers, with women more often cooing and cuddling and men tickling and tossing.

First, Israeli researchers took blood samples from 80 couples, all first-time parents, when their children were 6 weeks, and then 6 months, old. Oxytocin levels at 6 weeks, they found, were just as high in new fathers as they were in new mothers (partners appear to “match” each other in the production of the hormone), and the levels rose over the next four and a half months.

The researchers also observed the couples as they interacted with their infants, noting how often each parent did things like gazing at the child, talking “mommy-ese” to him or her, playing with them and otherwise stimulating love and learning. Women with the highest levels of oxytocin were most likely to demonstrate what the journal article calls “affectionate parenting behaviors” while men with the highest levels were most likely to demonstrate “stimulatory parenting behaviors.”

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

Scientists have found that the first stools that a baby passes after being born can actually be used to determine how much their mother smoked, or if she was exposed to tobacco smoke during pregnancy.

Meconium is a dark and tarry stool passed by a baby during the first few days after birth.

Researchers measured tobacco smoke metabolites in meconium samples from 337 babies, finding that they correlated well with reported smoke exposure and other markers of tobacco smoke exposure.

Joe Braun, from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA, worked with a team of researchers to carry out the study.

"Prenatal active and secondhand tobacco smoke exposure is a prevalent environmental exposure that is associated with adverse infant and childhood health outcomes. Biomarkers of exposure, like serum and meconium tobacco smoke metabolites, are useful to enhance the measurement of tobacco smoke exposure, which is often under-reported," he said.

The researchers found that tobacco smoke metabolites in meconium reflected the duration and intensity of gestational exposure to tobacco smoke.

Concentrations were higher and almost universally detected among infants born to active smokers compared to women with secondhand or no exposure.

Speaking about further applications of this research, Braun said, "Although meconium was not superior to serum as a biomarker of tobacco smoke exposure, it may be useful to estimate gestational exposure to other environmental toxicants that exhibit more variability during pregnancy, especially non-persistent compounds like bisphenol A and phthalates".

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

Here's an idea for parents: try giving your toddler a generous helping of pureed salmon for dinner tonight. Here's another idea: make it a point to have a dinner No. 2 on hand after your baby throws dinner No. 1 at your head.

If there's one hard rule of childhood, it's that kids don't like fish. Yes, they'll scarf down tuna salad and fish sticks, but even Mrs. Paul would tell you that doesn't count. However, Susan Brewer, a professor of food science at the University of Illinois, is convinced that babies' growing bodies — particularly their growing brains — need fish, and she's developed just the baby food that she thinks could pass their taste (and tolerance) test.

There are a lot of reasons all people are encouraged to eat fish at least twice a week, not the least being that it's low in fat and calories. Just as important, it's also rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for brain and nerve development and help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. For adults, the biggest benefits are the cardiovascular ones, but for babies, the brain is still very much a work in progress, and omega-3s — particularly a type called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) — are critical. A baby's brain, says Brewer, is 50% DHA, but a baby's liver is not good at synthesizing enough of it.

"If small children are going to get enough DHA," she says, "they're going to have to ingest it in their food."

Salmon, Brewer decided, is one of the best possible ways to provide it. Not only is the fish especially high in omega-3s, it's also mild tasting, which is part of what drives its global popularity so far up (and also, unfortunately, is pushing its wild populations so far down). Brewer developed a baby food that uses wild salmon caught late in the fish's life, a time when its flesh has begun to soften. She also adds salmon bonemeal and roe to her mix, which boosts nutrient level.

O.K., that sounds nasty, but when the raw ingredients are processed into baby food, the result is a product that, Brewer says, tastes more like salmon and cream-cheese dip than plain salmon. Parents (if not yet babies themselves) seem to agree. In one recent focus group, 81% of 107 parents said they liked the product and that they'd feed it to their babies.

Brewer believes that introducing fish early will help nurture not just babies' brains, but their palates too. One reason so many Americans have an aversion to fish is that it was not made part of their diets when their tastes were developing. Fish-based baby food already sells well in Asia, Italy and the U.K., in part because those countries include fish early and often in a child's life. One downside, of course, is sticker shock: wild salmon is pricey stuff even for adult connoisseurs; for babies, it might simply seem too extravagant. For now, however, Brewer is focusing on taste and nutrition; economies of scale may come later.

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

They may have barely mastered sitting up by themselves.

But six-month-old babies become stressed out when they don't get the attention they feel they deserve.

Levels of the stress hormone cortisol soar when they are ignored by their mother, and even a day later they are worried about the same thing happening again.

A baby who is deprived of its mother's love for just two minutes is anxious about being ignored again the next day, a study found.

To investigate whether six-month-olds are capable of anticipating trouble, the Canadian researchers invited 30 mothers and babies into their laboratory and divided them into two groups.

Babies were placed in car seats and their mothers played with them and talked to them as normal.

The play was then interspersed with two-minute periods in which the mother simply stared over her child's head, keeping her face free of emotion.

The next day, she took her child back to the laboratory. Levels of cortisol were measured several times on both days. Amounts of cortisol shot up when the babies were ignored.

They then fell off, before rising again when the youngsters were taken back into the laboratory, despite them not being ignored on the second day.

A second group of babies went through the same process, but without being ignored at any time, and their hormone levels barely changed.

The findings suggest that being taken back into the laboratory led the youngsters who had been ignored to anticipate there being more trouble ahead, the journal Biology Letters reports.

Researcher Dr David Haley, of the University of Toronto, said: 'The results suggest that human infants have the capacity to produce an anticipatory stress response that is based on expectations about how their parents will treat them in a specific context.'

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

Think of becoming a parenthood as starting a job. In time, you'll learn the skills, such as changing diapers and giving baths. However, it could take weeks or even months to feel like you've mastered it all. Tricia O'Brien, Features Editor for American Baby Magazine gives first time parents advice on how to get a handle on their new occupation.

In the first week focus on feeding. You might struggle with breastfeeding. It can be really hard at first but there is hope. Take it one step at a time. Work on getting the baby to latch on correctly. Have a lactation consultant come to your home. And don't be afraid to admit that breastfeeding is hard.

Week two it is time to find ways to get your sleep because by now you are exhausted. You're feeding the baby every 2-3 hours (if you're nursing) and every 3-4 hours (if you're formula feeding) which means waking up 2-3 times a night. Also, even though newborns sleep a lot (16 to 18 hours), some don't do it at the "right" times. Nap when the baby does or map your bedtime to the baby's. If you're formula feeding, alternate late-night feedings with your spouse. Breastfeeding moms can pump after a month or so, so Dad can help. Wake your child during the day if he sleeps more than four hours at a stretch, but keep the lights dim, even during diaper changes. Ask for help and accept any that's offered. If it is not baby related, like housekeeping, let it slide.

By week three you are trying to find a way to juggle it all. But, caring for a baby is time-consuming. With the feedings, diaper changes, and laundry it's hard to get anything else done. And most spouses have headed back to work and a visiting grandma may have packed up her bags. So, the thing to do now is be realistic about what you can accomplish. Set one non-baby-related goal every day, like doing a load of laundry, making a phone call, or writing two thank you notes.

In week four you probably will be settling into a routine. Even though things are getting into a groove, you may be coming to terms with things that didn't go as expected. You might have had to give in and supplement with formula and/or use a pacifier. You also may feel isolated from long stretches at home alone with baby. Make an effort to get out at least once a day, even if it's just a walk around the block. Also, surround yourself with other new moms by joining a new mommy group.

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

Despite a worldwide campaign for circumcision to slow the spread of AIDS, the rate of circumcision among American baby boys appears to be declining.

A little-noted presentation by a federal health researcher last month at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna suggested that the rate had fallen precipitously - to fewer than half of all boys born in conventional hospitals from 2006 to 2009, from about two-thirds through the 1980s and '90s.

Last week, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautioned that the figures in the presentation were not definitive. But they are already stirring a sharp debate on the Internet.

from 56 percent in 2006. The numbers are based on calculations by SDI Health, a company in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., that analyzes health care data; they do not include procedures outside hospitals (like most Jewish ritual circumcisions) or not reimbursed by insurance.

Andrew Kress, the chief executive of SDI Health, cautioned that the data had not yet been published and was still being analyzed, but he confirmed that the trend had been toward fewer circumcisions each year.

He added that measuring the circumcision rate was not the purpose of the study, which was designed to measure the rate of complications from the procedure.

Opponents of circumcision hailed the trend as a victory of common sense over what they call culturally accepted genital mutilation. For federal health officials, who have been debating whether to recommend circumcision to stem the spread of AIDS, the news suggests an uphill battle that could be more difficult than expected.

The study found a very low rate of complications associated with newborn circumcisions; most were considered mild and no babies died.

Both the C.D.C. and the American Academy of Pediatrics have been reviewing the scientific evidence on circumcision with an eye to issuing new policy recommendations, but so far neither body has done so, although the federal agency was to have issued its new recommendations by the end of last year.

The World Health Organization in 2007 endorsed male circumcision as “an important intervention to reduce the risk of heterosexually acquired H.I.V.”

Several state Medicaid programs stopped covering circumcision after the academy issued its current policy in 1999, and Dr. Brady said that may be one reason fewer parents opt for the procedure. Other possible reasons include a growing Hispanic population that has traditionally been disinclined to circumcision, as well the anti-circumcision movement and a broader trend among parents to spurn medical interventions like vaccination.

Some 80 percent of American men are circumcised, one of the highest rates in the developed world. Yet even advocates of circumcision acknowledge that an aggressive circumcision drive in the United States would be unlikely to have a drastic impact on H.I.V. rates here, since the procedure does not seem to protect those at greatest risk, men who have sex with men.

And while studies in Africa found that circumcision reduced the risk of a man’s becoming infected by an H.I.V.-positive female partner, it is not clear that a circumcised man with H.I.V. would be less likely to infect a woman.

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

Babies communicate long before they say their first words, says Linda Acredolo, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at University of California, Davis, and author of Baby Signs. "Babies are born with the ability to express several emotions, including distress and contentment," she says. When we read their cues and respond quickly to their needs, she adds, babies feel secure and the parent-child bond is strengthened. Of course, easier said than done - not all babies send the exact same signals, and sometimes it takes months before you feel truly in tune with your baby. Still, some general principles apply.

"Compared to crying, facial expressions are certainly more subtle," says David Hill, M.D., adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at University of North Carolina Medical School. Watch closely, however, and you'll soon catch these familiar expressions:

Gaze aversion

A baby who turns his face away from you needs a break from eye contact. "From about two months on, babies disconnect if they're feeling overwhelmed or over stimulated," says Dr. Acredolo. "Sometimes, the baby will turn his head to the side almost stubbornly, or play with his fingers or toes, or even start crying -- anything to break contact with an adult."

What to do: New parents sometimes get overenthusiastic when interacting with baby, says Dr. Acredolo. "These parents will try moving into their baby's line of sight even if the infant has turned away, or they may keep talking, tickling or jostling to win back their baby's attention," she says. Respect your baby's need for down time, and wait patiently and quietly until he turns back to you. "Then, smile broadly and re-engage with your baby," she says.

Smiling

The first true smile usually occurs between six and eight weeks, says Dr. Acredolo. "At this early age, smiles are likely a signal of physical contentment," she says.

Copycat

We are blueprints for our babies. "Between three and six months, most infants will learn to imitate facial expressions -- fear, surprise, sadness," says Dr. Hill. By nine months, a baby will take in a new situation (i.e. the appearance of a stranger), then look back at her mother's face. "If the baby sees the parent is also distressed, then her anxiety will increase," says Dr. Hill. "Usually, the baby will start clinging or crying."

What to do: Remember that if you're feeling stressed, your baby will be too. If it's a minor case of anxiety, take some deep, cleansing breaths and consciously relax your facial muscles to ease tension. "In many cases, the act of smiling itself is likely to calm you down," says Dr. Hill. "Follow that with strong, smooth touch such as hugging or patting, to let your baby know everything is okay." (Of course, if you're reaching the point of anger or frustration, you should always hand your baby off to someone else. If you're alone, put him down in a safe place like his crib until you've calmed down.)

BODY TALK

Studies suggest that about 90 percent of communication by babies and adults is nonverbal, says speech-language pathologist Diane Bahr, author of Nobody Ever Told Me (or my Mother) That! "For instance, many babies make little fists when they're hungry and begin feeding," she says. "Once they are satisfied and full, their hands relax and open." Other common body language cues:

Arching his back

Starting a few weeks after birth, babies begin arching their backs when they're in discomfort, says Michele Saysana, M.D., director of the Pediatric Hospitalist Program at Riley Hospital for Children at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Often babies arch their backs when they've had enough to eat and want to move away from the breast. (Around 4 or 5 months, this movement might mean something completely different -- that your baby is trying to roll over for the first time.)

What to do: Your baby probably just needs a change of position (after all, she can't move very much herself yet.)

Rubbing eyes and/or ears

Babies will rub their eyes and ears with their hands when they are starting to tire. "Before 6 months, they rub their faces against something if they are tired or itchy," she says. "After that, they might discover an ear by accident, and take comfort in pulling or rubbing it. Ears are a sensitive part of the body, and babies like feeling them."

What to do: Start your bedtime or naptime routine as soon as baby begins rubbing his ears and face. One caveat: If your baby is rubbing his ears, has a temperature of over 101 degrees, and is fussy, he may have an ear infection and you should call your pediatrician, says Dr. Saysana.

Rooting

The rooting reflex is a key to survival, as it helps the baby find food. "A newborn will turn his head whenever something touches his cheek," says Dr. Saysana. "The reflex disappears after the first few weeks, although babies will still turn toward you to nurse -- it's not automatic anymore and becomes a cue they are hungry."

What to do: Use the rooting reflex to your advantage while your baby figures out feeding; a simple touch of the cheek will help him find the breast or bottle.

Startle reflex

Loud noises, bright lights, or a head bobble can trigger the startle reflex -- babies jerk, spread out their arms and legs, then quickly pull them back in and cry. The startle reflex is present at birth, but fades between three and six months.

CRY BABY

Crying is the quickest way for your baby to let you know she's tired, hungry, in pain -- or just plain fussy. But which cry is which? Start listening for variations around one month, explains Bahr.

Hungry cry

A baby will generally wake up hungry and crying for food. "It's a short, low-pitched cry, just over a second in duration," says Bahr. If you don't respond quickly, the cry becomes louder and more intense.

Pain cry

A cry of pain comes on much more suddenly than a hunger cry. It's about twice as long, and continuous– that is, it doesn't rise and fall in pitch.

What to do: Go through a mental checklist when trying to comfort your baby. Could she have a wet or soiled diaper? Could she be too cold -- or too warm? (A baby waking up in a car seat, for instance, is often overheated.) Look your baby over from head to toe. Sometimes a piece of clothing or edge of a diaper is pinching her skin.

Tired cry

Between two and three months, your baby's cries will become more varied, and he may develop a cranky, "tired" cry. "It may be a softer variation of his distress cry, says Bahr.

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

There is perhaps no parenting decision that tugs on the heartstrings as strongly as whether to let a baby cry him or herself to sleep.

At one end of the spectrum are parents who use some form of "cry-it-out" method to teach their baby to sleep through the night. The method is characterized by periods of letting a baby cry - from a few minutes to more than an hour - without picking him or her up. At the other end are the "no-cry" types who consider letting a baby cry for any length of time to be cruel and unusual punishment.

Stuck in the middle are a lot of exhausted parents hoping to make the right choice – especially since sleep deprivation in infants has been linked to behavioural and cognitive problems, not to mention its effects on mom and dad.

New research on infant sleep appears to deal a blow to those in the cry-it-out camp. Penn State researcher Douglas Teti examined the role of emotional availability on infant sleep and found that regardless of a family’s night-time routine, infants with parents who were responsive and warm had fewer night wakings and an easier time drifting off. In his study, which involved infrared cameras placed in families’ bedrooms and nurseries, a lapse of more than a minute resulted in a lower emotional availability score.

While more research is under way to further test those findings, Dr. Teti, a professor of human development and psychology, says his work adds to a growing skepticism toward sleep training – not only that it may not work, but that it may, in turn, affect the parent-child relationship itself.

Since his landmark book Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems was published in 1985, pediatric sleep expert Richard Ferber has became the best known advocate of a “controlled-crying” approach. He advised parents to leave their infants in their cribs for increasingly longer periods of time, starting with a few minutes (the method spawned the verb “to Ferberize”). They were instructed to pat and comfort their baby through the crying, but not pick up or feed the baby.

Other authors and consultants have since added and subtracted behaviors to create their own formulas – staying in the room or not, being visible or not, soothing by voice or not, touching or not – though many caution against sleep training under six months. Parents often pick and choose from the methods, and some, misinterpreting Dr. Ferber’s technique, simply shut the door.

In Dr. Ferber’s second edition, published in 2006, he added a preface clarifying the difference between his method and a shut-the-door approach. “Simply leaving a child in a crib to cry for long periods alone until he falls sleep, no matter how long it takes, is not an approach I approve of,” he wrote.

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

Baby talk is found across languages and cultures, but the brain mechanisms that underlie it are not known.

Reiko Mazuka, Yoshi-Taka Matsuda and colleagues at the Riken Brain Science Institute in Tokyo used functional MRI to assess brain activity in 35 first-time parents whose infants hadn't started to speak (preverbal) and compared them to 30 men and women without any parenting experience. The study also included 16 mothers with toddlers who spoke two-word utterances and 18 mothers with children in elementary school.

The participants' brain activity was monitored while they listened to recorded baby talk, which triggers brain activation patterns similar to those that occur when someone speaks baby talk, also called infant-directed speech (IDS).

The brain scans showed that mothers with preverbal infants had increased brain activity in areas of the brain that govern language. This heightened brain activity did not occur in any other group, including mothers whose children had started to speak, according to a Riken news release.

Among mothers with preverbal infants, those who were extroverts also had increased cortical activation in speech-related motor areas of the brain, the investigators found.

The results show that there are clear distinctions in how people process and generate IDS. This is evidence that baby talk acts as a link for linguistic transfer from mother to infant and plays a crucial role in the early stages of infant language acquisition, the researchers concluded.

---

PregnancyWeekly.com

A study released last week by the National Association of Child Care Resource Referral Agencies finds that the cost of center-based care has now surpassed the cost of public-university tuition in a majority of states.

In the past 10 years, the agency's latest survey found, the cost of child care for the youngest children increased twice as fast as the median family income throughout the country, and in half the states it far outpaced the rate of inflation. The recommendation of the Department of Health and Human Services is that parents spend no more than 10 percent of their family income on child care. But in 36 states, the cost of center-based care for an infant exceeds 10 percent of median income for a married couple, and for single parents, the cost of center-based infant care exceeds 10 percent of median income in every state.

Exact numbers vary — from a low of $4,550 per year for infant care in Mississippi in 2009 to a high of more than $18,750 in Massachusetts. Infant care was particularly expensive — the yearly cost of care in a center is higher, on average, than the the yearly cost of food in every region of the United States. But even as children graduate to the toddler room, care hardly becomes a bargain. The monthly costs for center care for an infant plus a preschooler are higher than the median cost of rent, and nearly as high as the monthly mortgage for most families. (Costs for school-age children ranged from $2,160 in Mississippi to $10,400 in New York.)

Comparisons to college tuition also vary from state to state, but almost everywhere the ratio is startling. In 40 states the average annual cost for an infant in center-based care was higher than a year’s tuition and fees at a four-year public college. In Massachusetts, the yearly infant care cost exceeded the yearly cost of tuition and fees by $9,533; in New York, Wyoming and Washington, D.C., the infant-care costs were more than double the college costs.

What is the cost of child care where you live?

---

PregnancyWeekly.com