Abstract
Hormonal differences between fathers and non-fathers may reflect an effect of paternal care on hormones. However, few studies have evaluated the hormonal responses of fathers after interacting with their offspring. Here we report results of a 30-minute in-home experiment in which Filipino fathers played with their toddlers and consider whether paternal experience and men's perceptions of themselves as fathers affect hormonal changes. Fathers provided saliva and dried blood spot samples at baseline (B) and 30 (P30) and 60 (P60, saliva only) minutes after the interaction. We tested whether testosterone (T), cortisol (CORT), and prolactin (PRL) shifted after the intervention. In the total sample, T did not vary over the study period, while CORT declined from B to P30 and P60, and PRL also declined from B to P30. Fathers who spent more time in daily caregiving and men who thought their spouses evaluated them positively as parental caregivers experienced a larger decline in PRL (B to P30) compared to other fathers. First-time fathers also had larger declines in PRL compared to experienced fathers. Experienced fathers also showed a greater decline in CORT (B to P60) compared to first-time fathers. These results suggest that males' paternal experience and age of offspring affect hormonal responses to father-child play and that there is a psychobiological connection between men's perceptions of themselves as fathers and their hormonal responsivity to childcare.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 599-606 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Hormones and Behavior |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2011 |
Funding
This work was supported by: Wenner Gren Foundation ( Gr. 7356 ; Gr. 8186 ), National Science Foundation ( BCS-0542182 ; BCS-0962212 ), The Interdisciplinary Obesity Center ( RR20649 ), The Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility ( ES10126 ; project 7-2004-E), and a Student Research Grant from Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health. LTG was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship . Linda Adair played a central role in designing and implementing the CLHNS survey from which a portion of these data and samples were obtained. Jeffrey Huang helped with lab work. Jim McKenna provided helpful remarks on multiple stages of the manuscript. We thank the Office of Population Studies, University of San Carlos, Cebu, Philippines, for their role in study design and data.
Keywords
- Cortisol
- Prolactin
- Psychobiology
- Reproductive physiology
- Socioendocrinology
- Testosterone
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
- Endocrinology
- Behavioral Neuroscience