Summary: Researchers found that increases in mothers’ cortical responses to infants’ faces from pregnancy to the postpartum period are linked with stronger reported emotional bonds with their babies after birth.
Source: SRCD.
New research indicates that the brain changes that occur between pregnancy and early motherhood can influence how deeply mothers bond with their infants. While prior studies have largely focused on brain activity after birth, this study tracked expectant mothers from the third trimester into the early months of motherhood to determine whether changes in cortical sensitivity to infant facial cues predict mother–infant bonding. The results show that mothers whose brain responses to infant faces increased from the prenatal to the postnatal period reported stronger emotional connections with their infants than mothers without such increases.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto and Liverpool Hope University, appears in the journal Child Development, published by the Society for Research in Child Development.
“Our results support the idea that brain responses to infant cues evolve across pregnancy and early motherhood, and that there is meaningful variation between mothers,” said David Haley, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study. “Those individual differences in neural change are reflected in mothers’ reports of the emotional bonds they form with their babies.”
The quality of the early mother–infant relationship is widely recognized as essential to a child’s development. A strong emotional bond supports healthy social, emotional, and cognitive outcomes. Bonding typically develops over time—often beginning during pregnancy and strengthening in the months after birth—yet the prenatal origins of this process remain relatively underexplored.
In the study, 39 pregnant women aged 22 to 39 from the greater Toronto area participated; the sample included diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and most participants were married with college or graduate degrees. Each woman attended two lab sessions: once during the third trimester of pregnancy and again three to five months after giving birth. At both visits, researchers recorded brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) while participants completed a face-processing task. In that task, each woman viewed blocks of 40 images showing happy and sad infant and adult faces. At both time points, participants also completed questionnaires assessing symptoms of depression and anxiety; at the postnatal visit, they completed a standardized questionnaire about their emotional bonding with their newborn.
By comparing EEG markers collected prenatally and postnatally, the researchers measured changes in cortical sensitivity to infant facial cues and explored how those changes related to mothers’ self-reported bonding. The analysis focused on event-related potentials (ERPs) that index early perceptual and attention processes in the cortex, including P1 and P2 components and later potentials associated with attention allocation.
Results showed that mothers who experienced prenatal-to-postnatal increases in cortical responses—particularly in early attention-related components—to infant faces reported stronger postnatal bonding. These neural changes appear to reflect shifts in automatic attention toward infant cues rather than changes in deliberate, controlled processing. The pattern also did not appear to be driven by face-structural encoding specific to infants; instead, the effects aligned with enhanced attentional engagement with infant facial signals.
Taken together, these findings suggest that the transition from pregnancy to motherhood is a period of cortical plasticity and reorganization. For some mothers, this neural reorganization manifests as increased, automatic attention to infant facial cues and stronger reported emotional bonding with their babies.
The study has limitations. Its modest sample size means results should be interpreted cautiously, and bonding was measured via mothers’ self-reports rather than direct observations of mother–infant interaction. The study design was also correlational, so it cannot determine causality—whether neural changes drive stronger bonding or whether emerging bonds influence neural responses remains to be established.
“Future work will examine how emotional and cognitive brain networks interact during this transition, and whether changes in neural connectivity between these networks relate to how parents interpret and respond to their infants’ emotional signals,” said Joanna Dudek, a University of Toronto graduate student and coauthor of the study.
Funding: This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Source: Jessica Efstathiou – SRCD
Publisher: Organized by Neuroscience News.
Image source: Public domain.
Original research: Abstract for “Changes in Cortical Sensitivity to Infant Facial Cues From Pregnancy to Motherhood Predict Mother–Infant Bonding” by Joanna Dudek, Tyler Colasante, Antonio Zuffianò, and David W. Haley in Child Development. Published December 4, 2018. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13182
Changes in Cortical Sensitivity to Infant Facial Cues From Pregnancy to Motherhood Predict Mother–Infant Bonding
The transition to motherhood prompts structural and functional brain changes that may support mother–infant bonding. Using EEG, this longitudinal study examined prenatal-to-postnatal changes in cortical sensitivity (P1, P2, late positive potential, N170 event-related potentials) to infant and adult faces in 40 mothers (mean age = 30.5 years). Increases from pregnancy to motherhood in P1 and P2 responses to infant faces predicted stronger reported bonding. The findings indicate that changes in attention allocation rather than face-specific encoding are related to enhanced bonding.