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Big Story: How love blossoms between you and your baby

For Jen, having a baby was a revelation. As much as she looked forward to meeting her son and as much as she wanted to be a mother, she was completely unprepared for the big moment. People had warned her that she was about to fall in love like never before, but she didn't know what they meant until Joshua came along. The feeling hit as soon as she saw him. "It was like I wasn't even living before I looked at my baby," she says.

The bond between parent and child is one of the strongest connections in nature. Romances come and go, but once you've bonded with your baby you're probably hooked for life, and not because you enjoy the prospect of changing thousands of diapers. Clearly, children have the ability to reach deep into our brains as well as our hearts.

The love you feel for your baby isn't just intellectual or cultural — it's a basic part of your makeup. In recent years, scientists have started to explore this mysterious but crucial part of human nature. Their findings help explain why babies are so addictive and why we deeply love our older children, tantrums, arguments, and all. The bond will change over the years, but its importance never fades. Your child needs love like he needs food. And, even if you're a little nervous about parenthood, you'll be ready to give him the love he needs. After all, you have biology on your side.

Pregnancy: Love before first sight
Don't be surprised to find yourself loving your baby before you even meet. A potent mix of emotions, expectations, and powerful mommy hormones kicks in during pregnancy, setting the stage for your relationship with your child.

While you're daydreaming about your baby and picking out names, your body is already laying the foundation for a strong emotional bond. And as your due date nears, your brain starts producing more and more oxytocin, a hormone that literally helps bring out the mother in you. Also known as the love hormone, oxytocin turns on maternal behavior like nuzzling and grooming in animals from rats to monkeys. For now, it helps keep you calm while intensifying your anticipation of your new baby.

Oxytocin has attracted serious scientific interest in recent years. Animal studies suggest that it plays a huge role in all sorts of social behaviors, from raising babies to forming long-term relationships. Animals that don't produce oxytocin ignore their offspring and find different mates every season. Species that do make the hormone tend to be doting parents that form lasting bonds with their mates. So when your body starts pumping out oxytocin during pregnancy, it's as if love is coursing through your veins.

Your baby is also developing a bond with you, even in the womb. Studies show that his heart will beat a little faster at the sound of your voice. It's something that will excite and comfort your child now and for years to come.

You and your baby: Addicted to love
When it's finally time to have your baby, the stream of oxytocin in your brain and bloodstream suddenly becomes a torrent. Among its many other jobs, the hormone causes contractions and gets your milk flowing. (It works so well that doctors routinely pump pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin, through an IV to induce labor.) When you finally get to hold your baby, you'll be practically swimming in the hormone. Oxytocin can break through your exhaustion and pain to give you a feeling of euphoria and intense love. According to pediatrician and child development expert Marshall Klaus, the power of oxytocin helps explain why babies are almost never abandoned in hospitals that allow mothers to hold and nurse their babies in the first hour after birth.

New fathers aren't immune to the bewitching power of babies. Steve Bradley of Issaquah, Washington, says he never gave much thought to fatherhood even as his wife entered the last stages of pregnancy. "I was pretty much in denial until she (his daughter Olivia) started to crown," he says. Bradley never expected to start crying, but the waterworks came as soon as he saw his daughter. "She came out face up, looking at me first," he explains.

Like mothers, fathers get a rush of oxytocin when they see their babies for the first time. But that's not the only change to their system. A Canadian study in 2001 found that men's testosterone levels tend to plummet (for a couple of months anyway) after they become dads for the first time. Even more intriguingly, some men start to produce extra estrogen, perhaps the clearest sign of the transformative power of fatherhood. According to Diane Witt, a psychologist with the National Science Foundation, estrogen helps make the brain more sensitive to oxytocin, presumably helping fathers become more loving and attentive.

Oxytocin isn't the only chemical of love. As you hold, rock, or nurse your baby, each of you gets a rush of dopamine, the main currency of pleasure in the brain. While you're both enjoying the high, your baby's feelings for you are taking root. Again, animal studies give us an important insight into human love. In 2004, Italian researchers reported that baby mice that couldn't sense dopamine didn't especially care whether or not their mom was around, the strongest evidence yet that dopamine plays a crucial role in mother/infant bonding. Incidentally, dopamine is the same compound that "rewards" users of heroin or cocaine. In a very real sense, addicts who get hooked on drugs are simply chasing the feeling that flows between a mother and her baby. Parental love just happens to be infinitely healthier.

The natural flood of chemicals gives new parents a huge head start on a lifetime of attachment. Still, you don't have to be a biological parent to fall in love with a child. According to Witt, adoptive parents enjoy hits of oxytocin and dopamine too. They don't get that rush of hormones that accompanies birth, but the moment when they first meet their new child is plenty powerful in its own right.

In some cases, missing out on the birth experience may actually make it easier to bond with a child. According to Dr. Klaus, about 30 percent of mothers don't immediately fall in love with their babies, often because the baby or the birth process wasn't exactly what they expected. Disappointment, stress, or exhaustion can be enough to drown out the powerful hormones of love, but only temporarily. The vast majority of parents grow attached to their babies within the first few months.

Carrie Hook, a Bozeman, Montana, child-abuse prevention counselor and mother of three, was fully prepared to fall immediately in love with her first child, but she never got the chance. After a long and excruciating labor, Madison was born with a small amount of meconium in her lungs, and the nurses in the hospital immediately whisked her away. Hook couldn't nurse or even hold her baby for at least eight hours. Even then, she had trouble connecting with the screaming bundle in her arms. "I just figured that your baby is born and you fall in love," she says. "I never thought I'd need impulse control to keep from throttling her." Suddenly, she wasn't sure if she was ready to be a mother.

Hook often tells her story to mothers who are worried about connecting with their babies. The story ends on a happy note: After about three months, Madison stopped screaming, Hook started to feel more confident, and the love-fest began.

If you can't hold your baby right away after birth, don't despair. There isn't a magic "window of opportunity" for bonding, Witt says. Even if your baby is born prematurely and has to spend a few days or weeks in an incubator, you'll still have plenty of chances to fall in love. For one thing, the mere thought of him can be enough to get your hormones rushing. Still, you should push to get as much "mommy" time as possible as soon as possible, for your sake and your baby's. Recent studies show that skin-to-skin contact with a mother, often called kangaroo care, is one of the best therapies for premature infants.

As you're falling in love with your baby, in his own way he'll be falling in love with you. In the first hour of wakefulness, your child will look you in the eye and memorize your face, or at least a blurry version of your face. (Studies show that infants can recognize their mothers just a few hours after birth.) And by 7 or 8 months old, your baby will have developed strong emotional attachments to you and other important people in his life, says Julia Braungart-Rieker, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame. "It's important for infants to learn to trust their caregivers," she says. Your baby will care deeply about the people who hold him when he cries and feed him when he's hungry. He'll miss you when you leave the room, and he'll be happy when you come back. It's not exactly "love" as adults define it, but it's one of the strongest emotions he knows.

Note: It's impossible to "spoil" a baby with love, attention, and affection, says Emma Adam, a developmental psychologist at Northwestern University. When you comfort your child, you're building a foundation of trust and affection that will last a lifetime.

Toddlers: Are tantrums a sign of affection?
The bond between you and your child grows stronger in the toddler years, even if he spends much of the time stomping and screaming. In fact, those fits are a testament to your closeness. Tantrums from toddlers are a bit like lover's quarrels, according to Adam. "They're only capable of that meltdown because they love you so much," she says. In other words, your child couldn't be so disappointed or angry unless he trusted you deeply in the first place.

And no matter how many fits your child throws or how many dishes he breaks, you won't love him any less. In fact, you'll probably forgive his shortcomings quickly. British researchers recently scanned the brains of 20 mothers who were looking at pictures of their own young children. The part of the brain that controls pleasure — the same part involved in romantic love — lit up like a slot machine hitting the jackpot. The part that judges and criticizes, however, practically shut down. No wonder it's so hard to find fault with your child when you look into his eyes.

Jen Harrington certainly has trouble seeing any shortcomings in her son, even now that he's a big 5-year-old. He was one of those angelic, no-hassle kids that other parents envy. ("When he was a baby, we would sometimes joke that we should poke him just to see if he could cry," she says.) But they're equally crazy about their daughter, Abigail, a crier and screamer who's as strong-willed as her brother is mellow. "Before she was born, I was worried that I couldn't love another child as much as I love Josh," Harrington says. "But I do."

Your toddler has a rich range of emotions. (If you spend 15 minutes with him in a grocery store, there's a good chance you'll see every one of them.) But he still doesn't understand the concept of "love" as you know it. Toddlers often throw the word around loosely: They may say they love you, but they'll also say they love their books or their toys or their third-favorite cereal. (Remember, these are the same people who like to call all four-legged animals "doggies.") Even so, Braungart-Rieker says, you don't have to worry about your place in your toddler's universe. He's keenly aware that you're important, and when he gets his heart broken or wants to cuddle, he doesn't run to his toys or the cereal cupboard. "Children want help from the people they trust the most," she says.

Preschoolers and big kids: A more refined love
As your child gets older, he'll start keeping more of his emotions hidden, partly because of peer pressure and partly because the toddler method of expressing every passing feeling can be exhausting. Still, some older children are extremely generous with their affection. Jen Harrington's son Josh acts as if his mom and dad need constant reassuring. "When I drop him off at school, I can't leave without him saying 'I love you,'" Harrington says.

Even if your child doesn't hug you at every opportunity, the signs of love will still be there. Some kids are very confiding and will tell you everything, while others are by nature more likely to keep things inside. But as long as you're there when he needs you and are ready to listen, love will still flow in two directions.

The needy, clingy love of early childhood is starting to become more rich and complicated. Your child now feels empathy for you and others, and he'll start to love you as a person, not just a caregiver. As a preschooler, he may enjoy spending one night at Grandma's house, but it won't be long before he's begging to come home. At the same time, he's starting to push for more independence, which means he needs your love and support now more than ever. "It seems contradictory, but the more security you give your child, the more independent he can become," says Emma Adam, the Northwestern University psychologist.

Even as your child strives to become his own person, he can't break the bond he has with you. You have a connection that goes back to before he was born, a connection that's propped up by love, memories, and, yes, hormones. When you hold your 8-year-old or watch him in a school play, you get a little bit of oxytocin, a literal reminder of your first hours together. The emotions that hit you when you first met him will come rushing back. It's enough to make you fall in love all over again.

Baby Seven Signs that your child loves you
1. Your newborn stares into your eyes — he's actually working hard to memorize your face. He doesn't understand anything else about the world, but he knows you're important.
2. Your baby thinks about you even when you're not around. Between 8 and 12 months old, he'll start to scrunch his face and look around when you leave the room — and he'll smile when you return.
3. Your toddler throws wicked tantrums. Nope, those screaming fits don't mean he's stopped loving you. He wouldn't be so hurt and angry if he didn't trust you so deeply.
4. Your toddler runs to you for comfort when he falls down or feels sad. Kids this age may not truly understand the meaning of "I love you," but their actions speak louder than words.
5. Your preschooler gives you a flower picked from the garden, a finger-painted heart, a sparkly rock, or another gift.
6. Your preschooler wants your approval. He'll start to be more cooperative around the house, and he'll look for chances to impress. "Look at me!" will become a catchphrase.
7. Your grade-schooler trusts you with secrets, like his first crush or his most embarrassing moment. You're his confidante, even if he shies away from your hugs in public.
 

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