Expectant mothers aren't the only family members on a hormonal roller coaster, a new study in the June issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings shows. First-time fathers too undergo hormonal changes before and after their children are born. To explore these shifts, Sandra J. Berg and Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, recruited 23 would-be dads at first-trimester prenatal classes and another 14 men who were not fathers as controls. They took regular saliva samples from all of the men and measured levels of testosterone, cortisol (a stress hormone) and estradiol¿a hormone known to influence maternal behavior in women, nonhuman primates and other mammals.
"Relative to control subjects, expectant fathers have lower testosterone and cortisol concentrations and more frequently detectable estradiol," Wynne-Edwards says. "These results confirm and expand on the results of the only previous study, suggesting that men's hormones change as they become fathers." Whereas the earlier study had revealed some testosterone and cortisol fluctuations in men becoming fathers, the new research was first to discover that these men were exposed to more estradiol¿and that this exposure increased after their children were born. Now the scientists hope to learn just what these hormone changes do physiologically to new dads.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was wondering why I got so mad when I broke a nail yesterday.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing serious, I'd be curious if this is due to the woman or the baby. Is the father picking up biological cues to change hormones from the mother, the baby- or is it something environmental- the lack of sleep perhaps.
Do hormone levels return or stay at their altered state.
I'm certainly more sentimental than I used to be- I don't know if that is age, or fatherhood.
The reason is in our evolutionary past. During and after pregnancy a man's testosterone level is lower and the bonding hormone, oxytocin, is higher. It's Nature's way to keep us around the mother and baby since our testosterone won't be raging and have us looking...eh...up the wrong tree...
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