Archival ReportOxytocin and the Development of Parenting in Humans
Section snippets
Participants
Eighty cohabitating couples and their firstborn infant (n = 240 participants) participated in the study. Of these, 128 parents (66 mothers and 62 fathers) were seen again when the infant was approximately 6 months old (M = 24.8 weeks, SD = 4.38). Fathers' age averaged 29.45 years (SD = 3.87) and education averaged 15.7 years (SD = 2.85), and mothers' age averaged 27.24 years (SD = 3.67) and education averaged 16.08 years (SD = 2.22). Parents were all residing in central Israel, were of middle
Oxytocin
Maternal and paternal plasma OT levels in the second and sixth postpartum months are presented in Table 1. As seen, OT levels are consistent with previous studies in adults using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay methodology (27, 28, 30). Figure 1 illustrates frequency distributions of OT levels in mothers and fathers during the first and second visits. Prior to data analysis, OT levels were log transformed and outliers higher than three standard deviations of the mean in both time points were
Discussion
Results of the present study provide the first normative data on the distributions of OT in human mothers and fathers across the first months of parenthood. The data point to similarities between the OT levels of mothers and fathers and show that during the early phases of parenthood, peripheral OT levels in cohabitating parents are interrelated. Finally, the findings point to gender-specific associations between parental OT and parenting behaviors during dyadic interactions in the first
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