You’ve certainly heard of oxytocin, the “love hormone”, but do you know what it does in male and female parents and how to increase its production?

There are many hormones flowing through the pregnant, post-birth and new parent body – working to help you sleep, recover physically, feed your baby and more. This article will focus on oxytocin: explaining what it does in the body, from pregnancy to birth to feeding to parenthood, and the ways that you can increase its production. Jump to the recap if you’re short on time or energy!

Oxytocin reduces anxiety and increases bonding

Oxytocin mainly acts to increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system. You remember the two opposing forces of “fight and flight” versus “rest and digest”. The parasympathetic nervous system is the “rest and digest” bit – responsible for slowing your heart rate, increasing digestive enzymes, and allowing your body to relax. 

Oxytocin has a positive feedback loop. This means that increasing levels in the body cause even more oxytocin to be released.

Oxytocin works in your body to:

1. Make you feel happy, connected, safe
2. Decrease stress – both cortisol levels and blood pressure
3. Stimulate digestive and metabolic processes

Oxytocin from pregnancy to parenthood

Throughout pregnancy and birth

At the end of pregnancy, oxytocin levels increase, trigger maternal behavior and prepare the body for lactation. During labor, it’s your baby’s head pressing on the cervix that increases the production of oxytocin. The oxytocin helps the uterus to contract and push the baby out of the womb and it also reduces the risk of hemorrhage. This is why if your induced, or labor is stalled, you may be given oxytocin to help your body along. 

The female body is designed to give birth and care for the baby

When the natural birth process is altered, for example with a cesarean section or epidural, less oxytocin is produced during breastfeeding. And in a similar way, levels of oxytocin are increased as women have more children. So for your second or third birth you will have even more oxytocin flowing through your body. This explains some of the differences that mothers’ experience with subsequent births like more intense after pains – more oxytocin means stronger uterus contractions – and milk coming in stronger and sooner. Oxytocin also causes amnesia, allowing you to forget about the pain of childbirth and bond with your baby instantly. 

Now that baby is here

Oxytocin is released in response to suckling – both by breastfeeding and pumping – and it acts in the breast and in the brain. In the breast it relaxes the milk ducts so that the milk can flow, and in the brain it causes the release of another hormone, prolactin, which triggers milk production. Have your breasts started leaking when your baby or even another baby cries? Oxytocin is also released even before suckling to let the milk flow and produce more milk. 

Try to be in a calm environment during breastfeeding, both external stress, like noise and internal stress, like lack of concentration, decrease the production of oxytocin.

Research has also shown that inadequate oxytocin production is related to maternal depression and insufficient milk supply. In a vicious circle, depression is associated with lower oxytocin release in response to breastfeeding and women with lower oxytocin levels, even in late pregnancy, are more likely to suffer from depression. 

What about non-breastfeeding parents? 

Oxytocin is still at work in both men and women, albeit slightly differently. Foster mothers produce more oxytocin and increase maternal behavior when looking at or cuddling their baby, whereas in fathers oxytocin increases only after physical contact. In other words, fathers’ bodies produce the magical attachment hormone after they interact with their baby, so make sure to get your partner involved in caregiving and touching the baby regularly.  

Parental protective behavior

We said that oxytocin mainly acts to help your body calm down because you are in a safe environment. But, when parents, both male and female, are in an unfamiliar or threatening situation oxytocin actually does just the opposite. It activates defense mechanisms and aggression so that you can protect your baby. Maybe this is involved in the strong, visceral reaction you may feel when  

5 ways to increase oxytocin production

1. Vitamin D – soak in the sunshine, eat oily fish, red meat, or egg yolks
2. Physical touch – skin-to-skin with baby, hug from partner, petting an animal
3. Nipple stimulation or breast massage
4. Listening to music
5. Movement – both exercise and moving in sync with a group

Maximize the oxytocin boost 

Let’s combine physical touch, music, and movement with the skintoskindanceparty: take off your shirt, put your naked baby into the carrier, turn your music on loud, and dance! And, why not make it a routine? You can try a quicker diaperchangecuddledance at one diaper change a day – when you already have the naked baby, all you have to do is pick them up, hold them tight, sing a song and dance. 

In conclusion, oxytocin:

• Works in all new parents- birthing and non-birthing, male and female
• Makes you feel safe and connected and is also produced when you feel safe and connected
• Is produced during the natural birth process and with suckling
• Increases with physical touch, music, movement and vitamin D (sunshine)

Sources

• Bick J et al. Child Dev. 2013.
• Cevik A and Alan S. J Obstet Gynaecol Res. 2021.  
• Liu N et al. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2022. 
• Moberg KU et al. PLoS One. 2020.
• Rodriguez J. Health Central 2021.