11/24/2025
Father Involvement: The Benefit is Mutual
Fatherhood is life-changing, for dads and for babies. As tiring as being a Dad is at times, all those moments add up to a lifetime of love and connection.
👉We know moms’ hormone levels change during pregnancy. So do Dads’! Scientists say both parents experience a rise in the hormone prolactin around the time of a baby’s birth. Prolactin promotes child-caring behaviors in both parents.
👨🍼Here’s something to smile about: bonding time with your baby activates the circuits in your brain that are also involved in falling in love. When a dad has skin-to-skin contact with his baby, he releases oxytocin (sometimes knowns as the love hormone). Babies’ oxytocin levels rise, too. (Skin-to-skin contact between moms and babies has the same effect.)
🧠MRI images provide more evidence that men’s priorities change when they have kids. Brain scans of fathers and non-fathers showed that the reward-sensing region of dad’s brains lit up when they saw pictures of toddlers. Not so in the non-dads. Another study found that in the first four months of parenting, fathers showed increases in parts of the brain involved in parental motivation, including the hypothalamus and amygdala, among others.
Life Options offers services to men through our Parenting classes, Fatherhood program, and STI/STD testing. Reach out today if you want to get signed up for services. Text/Call 660-358-1378.
