Experts say wanting to ‘EAT’ your baby makes you a great parent!
Do you ever look at your little one’s cute chubby cheeks and think to yourself: “I could just eat her?!”
Apparently, the desire for wanting to devour and squeeze your baby’s fat rolls is TOTALLY NORMAL, say experts.
No… you’re not going mad!
Wanting to eat your baby is TOTALLY normal, say scientists
In fact, studies have found that looking at babies causes a surge in dopamine, a feel good hormone produced in the brain, that makes us want to look after, love and care for our children.
And this phenomenon of wanting to eat a baby has something to do with the way they smell.
Scientists published a study in Frontiers in Psychology, which showed that the smell of women who had just given birth activates the reward circuits in the brain.
“This circuit makes us desire certain foods and causes addiction to tobacco and other drugs,” said University of Montreal researcher and study co-author Johannes Frasnelli, in a news release.
“Not all odours trigger this reaction. Only those associated with reward, such as food or satisfying a desire, cause this activation.”
What’s more, according to scientists at Yale University, this cute aggression we feel of wanting to eat our baby is known as “dimorphous expressions”. It can also be helpful in controlling our emotions.
“We regulate emotions in a lot of different ways,” lead researcher Oriana Aragon told Buzzfeed.
“Sometimes we try to rethink the situation. Sometimes we try to push our emotions down with sheer will. Sometimes we remove ourselves from the situation that is causing the emotions.”
“And with this new discovery, we are figuring out that sometimes we respond with the opposite expression from what we feel, and that seems to help to balance us back out too.”
So, there you have it. You literally want to chew your baby’s face off because you can’t stand how darn cute they are!
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