Postpartum factors related to mother's recognition of newborn infant odours

Abstract

The first study replicated prior research in showing that new mothers in a two-choice recognition test are able to accurately identify their own infant's body odours on a T-shirt. The second study tested the hypothesis that new mothers are uniquely primed to rapidly acquire recognition of infant odorants. In contrast to expectation, this study showed that in a three-choice preexposure paradigm, new mothers perform no better than non-mothers at recognizing a pre-exposed unfamiliar infant T-shirt; they also perform no better when infant odours are used as discriminative stimuli than when non-infant-related stimuli are used. However, among the population of new mothers, mothers who are consistently able to recognize their own infants' odours in a three-choice pre-exposure paradigm differ from mothers who do not, in having more prior experience with infants, a shorter interval to first nurse their infants, more nurturing attitudes and more close nasal interactive contact with their infants during a feeding session. These results are discussed in terms of the interrelation between prior maternal experiences, infant recognition and maternal responsiveness.