Infant holding side biases displayed by fathers in maternity hospitals

Abstract

Women and mothers prefer to hold infants and young children on the left side of their bodies. However, previous data reported in the literature for men and fathers have yielded inconclusive results in this regard. The aim of the present study was to (1) look for a left‐side holding bias in 94 new fathers studied in 3 maternity hospitals, and (2) investigate any recorded bias in relation to a number of variables (e.g. handedness and hemisphere specialisation in the perception of facial emotions) and the varying effects of the latter on populations of mothers and unselected participants. The results showed that a significant percentage (65%) of fathers preferred to hold their newborn infants on the left side. This holding bias in fathers was governed by neither the couple’s number of children, nor handedness, nor hemispheric specialisation in emotion perception.

Keywords:

• infant holding biases
• fatherhood
• laterality
• perception of emotions
• newborn

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Étoile (Puyricard), Saint Joseph and Beauregard (Marseilles) maternity hospitals for their assistance, as well as Aude Cuter and Marine Farraire for collecting some of the data for the study.