Attractiveness of Breast Odors to Babies

After reading the title of this chapter you might conclude that this is an odd area of investigation, maybe even trivial to human behavior. The sense of smell is given a great deal of importance in non-human animal interactions, including parent-offspring relationships and mating. Often when we think of odors we think of something unpleasant or something to be avoided. However, the sense of smell may well play a vital role in areas of central concern to the human experience. A body of research has shown, however, that not only do maternal odors play a positive role in relation to their infants, they have been found to be downright appealing to newborns, Maternal odors are likely to be a significant factor in mother-child bonding or attachment (Porter, Balogh, & Makin, 1988). Recent research (Cernech & Porter, 1985; Macfarlane, 1975; Russell, 1976) suggests that breast-fed newborns prefer their mothers' breast or underarm odors to the same odors from unknown lactating females. This phenomenon has not been observed in bottle-fed babies (Cernech & Porter, 1985). Researchers Balogh and Porter (1986) suggest that this difference in response to underarm odors may be a result of the two styles of feeding. Breast-feeding requires close contact with the mother's skin while bottle-feeding may be done while the mother is clothed and without faceto-skin contact. It may also be that breast-feeding mothers produce special odors that newborns can identify. Leon (1983) from research on other animals suggests that such odors may serve to bond babies to mothers. The research by Makin and Porter described in this chapter focuses on whether or not the breast and underarm odors from lactating women are attractive to bottle-fed infants.