Insights from evolutionary psychology re how newborns protect themselves from maternal self-interest by gaming maternal instincts in their favor via oxytocin. Biology is SO much smarter than we think we are:
"To defend against maternal infanticide, a newborn's best strategy...
"To defend against maternal infanticide, a newborn's best strategy...
2/ "...may be to display cues that it is a vehicle worthy of investment....Newborns who nurse in the first hour of birth stimulate a surge in maternal oxytocin levels [causing the nursing mother to] become less motivated to self-groom for the purposes of attracting a mate...
3/ "...and more motivated to groom their infants....By contrast, new mothers who do not nurse are more likely to suffer from postpartum depression,...a condition associated with higher rates of maternal infanticide...
4/ "...and maternal thoughts of harming their babies."
More info + citations in Buss, Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 1., p. 391.
More info + citations in Buss, Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 1., p. 391.
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