Nancy Aaron Jones, Ph.D., a child psychologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, talks about how the so-called love hormone can help new moms dealing with depression.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News in November 2016.
Let’s start with the study itself. Tell me what you guys are doing here at FAU and then we will get a little more into why you are doing it?
Jones: Well, ok the study that we are doing is a study on infant development. It is looking specifically at Oxytocin and brain development. Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone that contributes to brain development and we are examining this hormone in the context of maternal depression and during different feeding patterns. What we are looking at is how the babies and the mothers, primarily the babies, change across development; how their physiology, their behavior, and their interactions change; depending on whether their mother is depressed (or non-depressed) and if that changes as well as when the mothers are breast-feeding versus formula feeding their babies.
A lot of this is the effects on the baby?
Jones: The effects and how what are considered natural changes, like we naturally feed our babies different foods across development and mothers and infants naturally have different moods. Some babies are growing up in a context of maternal depression, as maternal depression can is more prevalent that we know. In other families, mothers and infants demonstrate more positive interactions from birth. We are looking in depth at the interactive effects of the baby’s temperament and the mother’s mood on many important outcomes that can occur during development. Some of the measures that we are take examine the infant’s own impact on the relationship. So we look at both the mother’s impact on the infant and the infant’s impact on the mother and the relationship.
Are you talking about like prenatal and post-partum depression, or is this what are you looking at here and obviously it’s becoming, we are learning now this is more prevalent than originally thought.
Jones: Yes, we do look at depressive symptoms prenatally. One of the big goals is to start during the prenatal period where mothers both have different feelings about the baby, they have different feelings about the world and what it’s like to become a mother. The mothers could have either positive moods associated with that or they could have negative moods associated with that. We are looking at what her mood is and how that impacts the relationship during the postnatal period. Mothers also make choices about feeding in the prenatal period. There is a number of studies that have documented that mothers make choices about whether they want to breastfeed and for how long. They may also choose whether they want to limit the time they breastfeed and they also consider whether breastfeeding will have a social impact as mothers experience a number of people telling them what’s best for your baby. We start in the prenatal period, we go through infancy and through basically the first six months of life. Our study is funded through four months but we are hoping to have that extended through the first year. The goal is to examine neurochemistry and the neuro-hormones that the mother contributes, how the baby is impacted and the babies own neurochemistry and neuro-hormones and how that changes across the first six months. We also are examining this in mothers with depression and without depressive symptoms.
Okay, tell us a little about how Oxytocin plays a role in this and what you guys are looking at from both mom and baby?
Jones: Oxytocin is called the love hormone. It’s actually evaluated during social interactions, during breastfeeding, during pregnancy, and there are also some studies that actually say that it is elevated during any touch. There are several studies that actually believe that it is related to protecting and bonding with the baby. So while it is the love hormone it’s actually elevated when the mothers feels like the baby is at risk. It is related to the relationship and the bond so we want to know how it changes when the mother is depressed. And while we know that in mothers it’s elevated but what we are specifically looking at in this study is how that changes with mothers’ feeding and touch patterns across development. But we are also considering the babies oxytocin impact on the relationship. How they are impacted, how their own Oxytocin levels change across development with that the bond with their mother.
How do you measure this?
Jones: There are several ways that you can measure Oxytocin but we found that the most reliable way is through urine samples. We know that it is easy when you are pregnant to get mothers to give us a urine sample, we actually ask her for several urine samples during pregnancy and then we put little urine bags on babies just like if the doctor is checking for different hormones in the baby’s physiology. We use these little pediatric urine bags that we put them on under the diaper and then we collect oxytocin over several days. We have the moms put in them in the freezer then we collect them and send them off for analysis. We have some other scientists at the University of Wisconsin that analyzes the urine for the Oxytocin assay. Right now we plan to compare the mother’s oxytocin to the baby’s oxytocin at different stages of development.
What are you guys finding so far and is there anything that’s surprising you as you go?
Jones: Yeah, there are some interesting things that we’ve uncovered, however our sample is small at the moment. We have conducted several studies on maternal depression and breastfeeding and what we specifically found is that mothers who breastfeed (even when elevated in depressive symptoms) are bonding in some of the same ways and their babies are showing some of the same physiology as mothers who are not depressed especially if they maintain that breastfeeding relationship over a few months postnatally. It’s hard for some mothers to breastfeed but in general we find that not only that their touch relationship but their relationship benefits from that breastfeeding, because when babies are breastfeeding you are touching them naturally. Depressed mothers who bottle/formula feed they do not have that same natural touching and sometimes when women are depressed they actually give the baby to somebody else to feed; they can’t do that if they’re breastfeeding and so a lot of times they are getting higher Oxytocin level sort of naturally by virtue of breastfeeding.
Are you seeing those levels rise at those times?
Jones: Yes although the oxytocin measured through urine if not an immediate response. We see their touch patterns rise and what we are investigating in this study is whether that touch changes their overall physiology.
The EEG with the baby (Chloe), what were you doing as far as the testing with her; and were you looking at her brain waves, how does that work?
Jones: Well, all our studies examine brain waves across development. While the brain is impacted by hormones, like oxytocin, it also can be measured as patterns of frequency waves. So while urinary oxytocin is indirect measure, we can measure brain electrical patterns during an event. For this study we are also looking at the development of the brain in association with the infant’s temperament and the mother-infant bond. In our past studies we didn’t do Oxytocin we looked at frontal lobe development which is one of the areas in the brain that has been associated with temperament, it has been associated with the development of the personality and what has been called an approach orientation to the world. Other scientist had looked at brain patterns that are associated with depression, they find less left frontal activity in the brain when a person is depressed, so a lack of approach orientation in depressed group. But we look at brain activity as it is developing. Across several studies we looked at brain waves in one-month olds and three-month olds and six-month olds, and how it actually changes during maturation and how the brain changes and development with the social world impacting it.
You are seeing a lot of changes in the baby’s brain waves and you are saying due from age doctor or from like you are saying the world impact, what’s mom doing at the time or what if the babies been held or not held or?
Jones: We actually do know that the social world impacts the development of the brain. Most scientists called it brain plasticity, so the brain is being impacted by nutrition and by social influences. In addition, you could say that the infant’s brain is being impacted by what I would consider the social nutrition of the parents interacting with them. So infants get a boost in brain development if their parents stimulate them with interaction and their brain is changing in association with that. In particular, the frontal regions of the brain are processing emotional experiences and they are also developing the ability to regulate emotions. The early emotions that we have may impact us later in development because the brain make those connections to process information more efficiently. Studies have shown that brain activity patterns are different in teenagers, they are different in newborns; some have to do with developmental changes and some have to do with the social world impact on them.
How long is the study?
Jones: For the participants in the study, we are collecting data from the prenatal period to about six months postnatally. However, we have different questions the we may ask once the study is over that may lead us to another study but right now this one only goes up to six months. To get the number of families across the study, however, we expect to be collecting data for this study for the two to three years.
You are like let’s not worry about that now. Okay and how many moms and babies would you say you guys have enrolled?
Jones: We have about 50 babies enrolled in the study so far but we hope to get up to 200. Yes, so it’s a long term study and it’s long term also because it takes a lot of careful collection of data. We pay close attention to our participants and their families. We want to be sure the data is collected reliably and with special care for the participants and their information. We also want to make sure the participants are getting good and useful information, getting positive feedback about their infant and that we are doing a good job and making sure that we are collecting the data with precision.
This obviously wouldn’t be the easiest study to perform and it’s obviously a labor of love for you and your team. Why are you so passionate about this? Why did you want to do this?
Jones: I love babies and I love to help families with information that can benefit their baby. I’ve been working with the Palm Beach County Breastfeeding Coalition for many years now. We recognize the need to provide families with information about what are the benefits of breastfeeding, what are the issues you have to consider if you have some depressive symptoms, how to get the appropriate treatment and what are the benefits to the baby to get treatment. We want families to know that are the things that mothers can do to bond with their baby. We don’t want to pressure them to be the perfect mom but we want to give them the options. Mothers today are smart and informed! Our goal is to support them and encourage more positive interactions with their baby. We also want to support moms if they need help with depression. We don’t want to have a negative stigma associated with maternal depression as it can happen to anyone. Our goals is to support them and find whatever resources we can to assist them. Our goal is to provide information and recognition that mothering and infancy is a significant time in life and society should recognize the importance of these early and forming relationships
Absolutely, because what you are really seeing is the fact that how mom bonds with baby from the very beginning even prenatal like you are saying doctor it really can impact the child’s development later on. You are saying the teenagers and possibly beyond.
Jones: Yes, yes, we think that infancy is a very important period for developing relationships and infants are a part of that but their parents and society in large have to recognize that we need to support mothers. We need to support their choices in feeding, we need to support their relationship with their baby and that includes supporting the significant other, the father, the other people who are in her life that can help her. Finding all the other ways that families can help support mothers when they are depressed and when they are not depressed.
Is there any place, say it’s a pregnant woman, a new time mom who’s dealing with depression where should they go for help, or where should they look, or maybe to just look to learn more about the study?
Jones: I work with FAU and the Palm Beach County Breastfeeding Coalition and there is a number of resources, mental health services (www.postpartum.net), the Child Services Council of Palm Beach County and Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, there are a lot of good local and national resources.
Very quickly one sentence. Doctor, what is the love hormone?
Jones: Oxytocin is the love hormone. Oxytocin is one of the various hormones that contribute to pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. It is a hormone that scientists have associated with touching, bonding and feeding. It is a neuro-hormone. We have different levels in our brain across pregnancy and across feeding and so it is a biochemical that is present in our brain, designed to assist in socio-emotional bonding.
Is it in everyone’s brain, it’s in men’s too, right?
Jones: Yeah. Yes, yes. But it’s in the higher levels in pregnant women. It’s in higher levels when the babies are about to be born. It’s a natural hormone that’s already in your brain and it helps the mother-infant bond. Males do have it too as infants are males and females. Ruth Feldman has some studies on fathers and their oxytocin but we haven’t studied that here.
Is postpartum depression more prevalent then we even think it is?
Jones: Well postpartum depression occurs in about ten to twenty percent of women. However, we are learning now that pre-partum depression is a significant predictor of whether you will have postpartum depression. Pre-partum depression or depression during pregnancy is about as common as postpartum depression, however, the issue is that if you have depression during pregnancy you are more likely to have postpartum depression. If women are feeling those sad moods associated with pre-partum depression or during pregnancy they have to recognize this is going to be a significant risk factor for later postpartum depression. They should talk with their doctor, they should talk with their significant others and their families and recognize that maybe a sign that you may have to worry about this postpartum. We all think that once the baby is born everything is going to be perfect but it actually is a significant stressor to have a baby, to be responsible for this life so sometimes those early, nagging feelings can be hints to us that we really need to take this seriously and to make sure that we have the support system later to work with us if we have postpartum depression. Because that’s going to impact how well you take care of the baby, it’s going to impact what you can do and it really is important that we provide women with a resources to deal with this you know in an effective way.
What’s the goal of the study?
Jones: To examine the relationship between the mother and the baby and how the baby impacts the relationship. To examine oxytocin and brain development. To examine maternal depression and infant feeding. It is a study of the psychological and relationships factors that impact the baby’s physiology and the emotional relationship between a mother and her infant from the prenatal period across the first six month of life.
END OF INTERVIEW
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