Well, maybe this video wasn't as far off as I thought.
A Canadian study shows that men's prolactin levels increase when their partners are pregnant:
In a surprising series of tests by Canadian scientists, up to 90 per cent of dads have reported pregnancy-like symptoms such as nausea, cravings and weight gain. Anne Storey, of Memorial University, Newfoundland, analysed 31 expectant men's blood and found that those with phantom-pregnancy symptoms had significantly raised levels of the hormone prolactin, which is named for its role in promoting lactation in women. It also prompts animals to build nests. Storey reports in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior how she also found that the boisterous male hormone, testosterone, falls in new and expectant fathers by as much as 33 per cent. It also decreases in response to an infant's cries and when men comfort their own child. The reduction, she suggests, may serve to encourage fathers to relate, rather than compete, with their children.
The study also showed that men with high prolactin levels are more alert to a baby's cry, and that men with lowered testosterone levels feel more of a need to respond to their infants' crying.
“The evidence suggests there is a biology of fatherhood,” says Barry Hewlett, an American anthropologist who has studied Aka hunter-gatherers in Central Africa for three decades and considers them hugely attentive fathers. Aka men spend almost half their time either holding their babies or being within reach of them. They let their offspring suck their nipples for comfort, Hewlett says.
He ran a study in the United States that took blood samples from fathers before they held their infants, and again after they had them on their chests for 15 minutes. Their prolactin levels went up.
Oh, and who says men can't be breastfeeding counselors? Not this Missouri dad.
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