This is why I want to talk about this amazing hormone, and it's my favorite hormone and it's
called oxytocin. So, oxytocin is a neuropeptide - which means it's basically a little smaller than a
protein but it is bigger than just a series of amino acids.
Oxytocin has this nickname called the "Love hormone"
and that's a terrible, terrible name for it because it is not about love,
it's about pro-social behavior and helping with social bonding.
Now, here's what I want to talk about is that many, many studies now have shown that
females have higher levels of oxytocin. And not only do females have higher levels of oxytocin,
oxytocin actually does something different for a female than it does for a male.
In males it can actually help influence them to be more aggressive and anti-social. But for females,
it makes them be more pro-social, which is fascinating. And there's another neuropeptide
that we should probably discuss at a later date but I - would probably won't go into right now
called vasopressin. That is kind of somewhat similar in a lot of ways to oxytocin for the male.
But the point here is, imagine this, we have the same chemicals coursing through our brains
as males and females yet those chemicals can literally cause us to behave differently and
that is fascinating. And it's something we just - we need more data on. We need more
experimentation. But one of the most interesting aspects about oxytocin and one of my - just
favorite things to talk about is how oxytocin helps to actually bond a mother and her infant.
And what we see is that oxytocin levels, the higher the oxytocin levels that mom has during
pregnancy, the actual - she tends to be closer to that child in those initial stages of life.
On top of that, as soon as the baby is born what they find is that oxytocin surges through mom as
soon as that skin-to-skin contact happens. So all right, picture it like this - oxytocin - so the
baby's gonna be born - next we'll go here - the baby is going to be born, push through the vaginal
canal and then they're going to cut that umbilical cord and the and they're going to clean off the
baby to an extent - again, this is a typical hospital birth and then step one is give skin to
skin contact with mom and there's a reason because both mom and infant get a rush of oxytocin.
And that does a couple things - because oxytocin is also going to cause the uterus to contract.
There's a synthetic form of oxytocin called Pitocin.
So for any of you've ever heard of people being induced, they get pit - is like kind
of like the shorthand way of saying it - the cool way, I guess you could say,
of saying Pitocin it's a synthetic form of oxytocin and it causes the uterus to contract.
Well, remember, just because a baby's born does not mean that the placenta
is out yet. So the uterus needs to still contract to help push out the afterbirth. So what happens
for one, as soon as mom holds that baby and starts snuggling the infant skin to skin,
oxytocin rushes and floods to her uterus causing it to contract to help get rid of the afterbirth
and also to start kind of sort of decreasing its size, but that's going to take longer.
At the same time, it's going to increase her body temperature.
And by increasing her body temperature, that's actually going to warm up the baby a little bit
because that baby's been used to this really snug warm environment inside of mom's uterus,
but now all of a sudden it's going to be like "Oh yes", so it's going to get warm.
Then it's oxytocin is also going to stimulate milk secretion. Many mothers can - know exactly what
it's called - it's called the "letdown" and you can actually feel oxytocin start to flood into the
nipples. And the idea there is that the oxytocin, right? It's gonna help pretty much instinctually
have that child start searching for the nipples so it can start breastfeeding, which is amazing.
So then, let's say the baby's cleaned, the doctors have done everything they need to do, the staff,
everyone's made sure and now mom just gets to hang out with baby. They want the baby to feed
very soon. And one of the things that can happen - and this is not just going
to happen right in the very beginning, this is going to continue to happen.
Mothers will always talk about the whole breastfeeding aspect of things is one of the
most uniting moments they have with their child, and that's because we have found that keeping
eye contact actually raises oxytocin levels. And this is in just in humans.
So for instance - I mean, not just in humans. Um, here's something really cool - if any of you
have a dog and that dog is nearby, I want you to do a little experiment right now,
okay? What I want you to do is I want you to get your dog's attention and start making long eye
contact with them, and I guarantee something very unique is going to happen between both of you.
The longer you make that eye contact - this is something that has been trained
into us since dogs were wolves and we domesticated them - prolonged eye contact
actually increases oxytocin levels in both in humans and in dogs and it makes you more
bound to them - more pro-social and socially bonded to them.
It actually - it's like you almost love them more, which is crazy. Same thing happens when a mother
is breastfeeding. When she's breastfeeding, she will look into the eyes of her child and they're
both going to have oxytocin spikes and those oxytocin spikes are going to help bind them and
bond them together because you have to understand that humans, we need to take care of our young.
There's a lot of creatures on this planet that that is not actually a drive for them.
What I mean by that is like - take for instance certain sea creatures,
right? Like say um squid for example. If I’m remembering correctly off the top of my head,
I believe it's squid. Squid will just lay their eggs and then just leave. They're like
"See ya, hope things work out". You can't do that with a human being. You just can't do that.
And so, oxytocin actually forces you, the mother, to just really become attached to that infant.
Now interestingly again, oxytocin is going to do similar things for the male in certain occasions,
but another hormone called vasopressin is also going to really be acting on him as well so. So,
males are going to get a very similar kick but it's nowhere near as powerful.
And you have to understand too that oxytocin levels - so, they they've actually done
experiments with different mammals where they've lowered their oxytocin levels and then had them
give birth. I think it's been with mice. It's been a while since I looked into this but they've done
that and what they find is the mice don't really care to nurture their children when they have
low levels of oxytocin. And then they've done the inverse and they've actually given oxytocin
to mice and I think other creatures too that didn't actually have a child and they become
far more nurturing to other children. This is really, really fascinating stuff, right?
So, you also have to understand they have looked into the serum levels for females and males and
compared them resting oxytocin levels and females have a higher level of oxytocin
just flowing through their veins, which is interesting because again,
for females, oxytocin has been shown to induce pro-social and very socially bonding behavior.
And if you think about it, again, it's not this simple - I think it's wrong to sit there and go
"Oxytocin is responsible for why females are the way they are", that's a bad way to look at it,
it's so much more complicated than that but it's a fascinating piece to the puzzle.
So, you have to understand that when it comes to mothers and their children, right? Oxytocin
is so important and so vital for them. It's such a
cool thing. But that's only the beginning of the story with oxytocin,