Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

Oxytocin Whats Love Got to Do With It? The posterior pituitary - a tiny gland deep within the center of our brains - secretes a

powerful hormone called oxytocin. It is the first hormone to have been chemically synthesized, earning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Dr. du Vigneaud in 1955. Since the late 1990s, there has been an explosion of studies correlating oxytocin (along with estrogen and progesterone) with behavioral aspects concerning sexual life, intercourse, childbirth and lactation. Studies since the 1970s have revealed this hormone to be one of the most powerful factors involved in maternal behavior, and now scientific evidence demonstrates that it influences social behavior as well. Lets look at one of those studies:
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco and Penn State University illustrate how behavioral response in stressful situations is different for women than for men. In fact, women elicit a tend-and-befriend response instead of the fight-or-flight response that weve all been taught in biology class. The studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone, may be at the core of this social supporting tend-and-befriend phenomenon. An interesting side note: although men are less likely than women to seek and give social support, they are often

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

recipients of social support, and such support - especially from a female partner, close relative, or close female friend - appears to be successful in reducing aggressive behaviors in response to stress. Men coincidentally have higher levels of oxytocin in their bloodstreams upon receiving such support.

Oxytocin is not only produced in the pituitary. The fetus and the placenta begin secreting oxytocin and directing maternal behaviors, even before birth. Its now known that the process of labor triggers oxytocin release within the brain of both the mother and her fetus, as well as into the circulation, in a pulsating manner. Scientific findings suggest that the placenta, with its cortico-tropin-releasing hormones, also direct maternal and fetal behaviors. When this delicate balance of pulsating hormonal release is manipulated, either externally (for example, by interrupting initial mother-infant bonding), or internally (by IV injection of Pitocin - the synthetic version of oxytocin), these manipulations have the potential to negatively influence social development throughout a persons entire life. Lets look at another study: Psychiatrist Ryoko Hattroi in Kumamoto, Japan evaluated the risks of becoming autistic according to place of birth and how the birth was manipulated by external factors, such as sedatives, anesthesia, and induction of labor. (IV oxytocin for inducing labor is never the same as the natural pulsating secretion of oxytocin by the brain or placenta.) The autistic children were born to mothers who were entirely manipulated during their labor, and the children were shown to have comparatively low levels of oxytocin in their brains.

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

Today it is possible to claim that our health is shaped in the womb, says Dr. Michel Odent, founder of The Primal Health Research Institute in London. He goes on to explain that oxytocin has been known as the hormone of love because of its long-term effect on social behavior. Juvenile criminality can be interpreted as an impaired capacity to love, says Odent. Dr. Raine and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles followed 4,269 males born in the same hospital in Copenhagen. They discovered that the main risk factor for being a violent criminal at age 18 was the association of birth complications, together with early separation from or rejection by the mother. Early separation-rejection by itself was not a risk factor. The probability of risk means that a newborn has a potential toward a certain behavior or for life-threatening medical conditions later in life. Now scientists base this risk factor on a newborns first hours during and after birth, and for the first time we have scientific evidence that points directly to oxytocin as a factor in the debate of nature vs. nurture. In a classic experiment that demonstrated the interrelationship between birth interference and love, Konrad Lorenz interposed himself between newly hatched ducklings and their mother in the summer of 1933. He then imitated the mothers quacking. The ducklings became attached to Lorenz for the rest of their lives. Other ethologists have observed the relationship between other mother and infant animals separated at birth. When mother and baby are separated immediately after birth, there is decreased oxytocin secretion in them or between them. Yes, between them. When the mother and her newborn 3

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

gaze into each others eyes it stimulates the supra optic nerve bundles - those cranial nerves located just behind the eye - which have a direct physiological connection to the posterior pituitary, thus, release of oxytocin in both the mother and the baby. Blind mothers (as well as sight mothers) also recognize and bond with their newborns through the olfactory sensor bulbs (our sense of smell also has a direct hit on cranial nerves), with stimulation of the posterior pituitary and oxytocin secretion. Fathers gazing lovingly into their babys eyes also release a surge of oxytocin, which could very well have a direct impact on their social memory and bonding. Dr. Ferguson and colleagues at Emory University prove that if male mice have their oxytocin receptor gene altered, they lose their social memory they cannot remember who their nest mates are from one minute to the next. Other memory paths are not effected (they can manage a maze). The male mice that were given injections of oxytocin, even though they didnt carry the receptor gene, could remember their mates for as long as that hormone was in their blood stream. Maternal release of morphine-like hormones during childbirth include endorphins, which may explain how mothers can forget some of the pain they suffered during birth. The baby also releases its own endorphins in the birth process and today there is no doubt that, for a certain time following birth, both mother and baby are impregnated with opiates. Peak levels of oxytocin just after birth can be higher than during labor, especially during breastfeeding. This may assure a chemical dependency between mother and newborn, to the benefit of both and of the species.

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

Suzanne Colson and researchers in London show that the act of suckling at the breast is not the only thing that stimulates hormone release (thus, milk letdown). The mere physical sensation of skin-to-skin contact with the baby on its mothers chest stimulates a newborns ability to release his own hormones. Human babies have been shown to be able to crawl up onto the nipple area of the breast, with no outside help, if skin-to-skin contact is maintained. They find the nipple by sense of smell and begin suckling. Also, a baby prefers its mothers smell to any other lactating mother, even at the first hours after birth. The natural, pulsating release of hormones are diminished or blocked with interruption of the birth process: for example, with epidural anesthesia or intravenous injections of Pitocin (synthetic oxytocin). With IV Pitocin, the pituitary gland no longer releases its own pulsating oxytocin, since there is an outside source dripping into the circulation at a steady clip. Bertil Jacobson and Karin Nyberg looked at the background of 200 opiate addicts born in Stockholm from 1945 to 1966, studying their non-addicted siblings as controls. They ascertained that if a mother had been given certain painkillers during labor, her child was statistically at increased risk of becoming drug-addicted in adolescence. When she is interrupted with activities that stimulate the thinking portion of the brain (a video camera in her face, lights, interrogation by medical staff, coaching directives to push! and other interruptions), a woman in childbirth has no opportunity to go within to her primal brain. Interruptions of her most primordial event prevent the natural secretion of a mixture of hormones that help her to adapt to pain, to letdown her milk or to become 5

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

addicted to her baby. When the newborn is taken away from its mother, that child has no opportunity for his or her own release of oxytocin and other hormones either. As early as 1956, Blauvelt and his research team demonstrated that if a baby goat is separated from its mother for only a few hours before the mother has a chance to lick it, and the kid is then given back to her, the mother wants nothing to do with it. If separation between an ewe and lamb begins at birth and lasts four hours, half the ewes wouldnt take their newborns back. In contrast, if they were separated after having been with mother for at least four days, all the ewes would accept their lambs again. Also interesting, when the ewes were given epidural anesthesia, they did not take care of their lambs after birth. Dr. Odent and his colleagues at the Primal Health Research Institute have a data bank with studies that have been published in dozens of countries, from hundreds of years worth of research, demonstrating a relationship between events at birth and later violent behavior, including autism, suicide and drug addiction. For example: In Finland, 11,000 pregnant women were asked, during their sixth or seventh month of pregnancy, whether the pregnancy was wanted, mistimed but wanted, or unwanted. The risk of later schizophrenia in the offspring of the mothers in the unwanted group was significantly higher when compared with the other two groups. Schizophrenia can be interpreted as an impaired capacity to love as the personality is detached from its environment. This type of research begs the question of whether babies who are being given for adoption should receive skin- to-skin and eye contact for the first few hours of life by their birth mother. 6

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

In one-way or another, all cultures disturb the purely physiological process during the period surrounding birth. Some do it more subtly than others, with taboo or ritual that is part of the culture. In her book Birth as an American Rite of Passage, the anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd explains how the culture of technocracy informs and defines the ritual and practice of birth in the United States (as in most developed countries). Science, technology, institutions and patriarchy are valued, while nature, women and intuition are not. In the technocratic model of care, the basic principle is separation, while in the holistic model it is respect. In the technocratic model (i.e. the model of childbirth in hospitals) the focus is on curing disease and repairing dysfunction the womans body and product of conception are not her own, they are in the hands of the technocracy, who always knows whats best. The body is a (dysfunctional) machine; there is objectification of the patient, with an aggressive and interventionist approach to diagnosis and treatment, and authority inherent in the practitioner not in the mother. Of course, authority is non-existent in the baby. And love is not a factor in the operation (in some developed countries the cesarean surgical rate is upwards of 70% of all births). Bertil Jacobson from Sweden studied how people commit suicide by examination of 412 forensic cases of suicide victims. He compared these with 2,901 controls, and found that suicides involving asphyxiation were closely associated with asphyxiation at birth; suicides by violent mechanical means were associated with mechanical birth trauma. He confirmed that men (but not women) who had 7

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

traumatic births are five times more at risk of committing suicide by violent means than others. Forceps, vacuum suction extraction and cesarean operations constitute 92% of all hospital births in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, which begs the question: What is their adolescent suicide rate? Ethnology is the study of contemporary cultures, while ethology (from the Greek ethos) would be the study of the characteristic attitudes or habits of a group. With a database of scientific information, we can locate and study material on pregnancy, childbirth and the first few days following birth and eventually categorize it all under ethology. Armed with such knowledge, one observes that human societies impose a pattern of interference on women and their offspring at the time of childbirth. The ethological approach is also crucial in helping us to realize that only those societies which have been successful at developing their capacity to dominate nature and to dominate other human groups have survived until the end of this millennium. All the other cultural models have disappeared, says Dr. Odent. A simple conclusion may be drawn from an overview of the scientific data: the greater a societys need for aggression and the ability to destroy life, the more intrusive are the rituals surrounding birth. Controlling a womans birth ritual is one way of controlling women, and society. # # # 8

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

REFERENCES Blauvelt, H.(1956) Neonate-mother relationship in goat and man in Schaffner, B. (Ed) Group Processes, Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, New York Colson S. (March 2002) Glucosemia and ketone levels in premature infants before and after being at the breast with or without milk ejection, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, presented at Midwifery Today Conference in Philadelphia, PA Davis-Floyd, R. (1992) Birth as an American Rite of Passage, Univ of Calif. Press, Berkeley, CA Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1989) Human Ethology, Aldine de Gruyter, New York Ferguson, J. et al. (July 2000) Social amnesia in mice lacking the oxytocin gene, Nature Genetics Vol.25, No.3, pp 284-288 Harlow, H.F. (1963) in Rheingold (Ed) Maternal Behavior in Mammals, John Wiley, New York Hattori, R. et al. (June 1991) Autistic and developmental disorders after general anesthesia delivery, Lancet 337:1357-8 Jacobson, B. (1998) Obstetric care and proneness of offspring to suicide as adults, Br. Medical Journal 317:1346-49 Jacobson B, Nyberg, K et al.(1999) Opiate addiction in adult offspring through imprinting after obstetric treatment, British Medical Journal 301:1067-70 Kirschbaum, C. et al.(1995) Sex specific effects of social support on cortisol and subjective responses to acute psychological stress, Psychosomatic Medicine 57:23-31 Krehbiel, D. (1987) Peridural anesthesia disturbs maternal behavior in primiparous and multiparous parturient ewes, Psychology and Behavior 40:463-72 Lorenz, K. (1971) Studies in animal and human behavior, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge MacFarlane, J.A.(1975) Olfaction in the development of social preferences in the human neonate, in Porter, R. et al. (Ed.) The Human Neonate in Parent-Infant Interaction, pp. 103- 17,Ciba Foundation Symposium 33, Amsterdam, Elsevier Press. Moss, I.R. etal. (1982) Human beta endorphin-like immuno-reactivity in the perinatal/neonatal period, Journal of Pediatrics 101 3:443-46

Ann Davenport

Science Essay: Oxytocin and Love

Myhran, A. et al.(1996) Unwantedness of a pregnancy and schizophrenia of a child Br. J of Psychiatry 169:637-40. Odent M. (1997) The early expression of the rooting reflex, Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology in Rome, Academic Press, London, p.1117-19 Odent, M. (1999) The Scientification of Love, Free Association Press, London. Poindron, P.(1979) Hormonal and behavioral basis for establishing maternal behavior in sheep, in Zichella, L (Ed) Psychoneuroendocrinology in reproduction, Elsevier Press, Amsterdam. Raine, A. et al. (1994) Birth complications combined with early maternal rejection at age 1 year predispose to violent crime at 18 years, Archives in General Psychiatry 51:984-88 Russell, J. et al.(Ed.) (2001) The Maternal Brain: Neurobiological and neuroendocrine adaptation and disorders in pregnancy and postpartum, in Progress in Brain Research (vol. 133) Elsevier Press, Oxford Shelley,E. Cousino,L. et al.(Nov 2000) Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend- and-befriend, not flight-or-fight, Psychological Review 107(3):411-429 Sukkar, M.Y et al. (Ed.) (2001) Concise Human Physiology (2nd edition), Blackwell Science, Oxford, England Uvnas-Moberg, K. et al. (1989) Hormone release in relation to physiological and psychological changes in pregnant and breastfeeding women in Van Hall, E. (Ed.) Womens Health in the 1990s, Parthenon Press, Lancaster, England Zarrow, M. X. (1971) Prolactin: is it an essential hormone for maternal behavior in the mammal? Hormonal Behavior 2:343-54

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