Baby heads smell amazing. I should know - I've had three babies, and with each birth, I've found myself intoxicated by the warm funky scent of that downy newborn crown. It's not just me, either; I've had friends, family members, even strangers ask to sniff my children's heads.
宝宝的头闻起来香香的。我知道--因为我有三个孩子，每生一个，我就会沉浸在长满细毛的婴儿头的温暖气味中。不仅只有我一个人这么做，我的朋友、家里人，甚至是陌生人都会闻一闻孩子的头。
There's a reason for that, and it's not just that a bunch of adults all happen to be weird in the same way. As research has shown, that blissful baby smell is real, and it's a valuable little biological trick for keeping babies alive.
这是有原因的，这并不是因为我们这群大人有怪癖。研究已经表明，幸福的婴儿气味确有其事，而它也是让宝宝活下去的宝贵生物妙招。
"As anyone with a baby knows, newborns are not too much fun to be around. They sleep, eat, and make you change the diapers. Still, most if not all parents say that having a baby is one of the greatest experiences," says physician Johannes Frasnelli, an anatomy professor at the University of Quebec. "So, of course, there must be mechanisms which allow for a very strong bond between parents, especially mothers, and the baby. We think that the odor of babies is involved in one of these mechanisms" - that babies draw in parents with their scent to ensure they're kept fed, warm, and safe.
"任何有宝宝的人都知道，新生儿并不有趣。他们睡觉、喝奶、让你换尿布。但绝大多数家长认为生宝宝是最棒的经历之一，"魁北克大学解剖学教授约翰内斯·弗拉斯内利医师说道。"当然，父母，尤其是母亲与婴儿间的牢固纽带肯定是有一定机制的。我们认为宝宝的香味就属于这种机制"--宝宝用他们的香味吸引父母以确保自己吃好喝好并处于安全的环境。
"In fact," he adds, "many people, mainly parents, will say that the baby odor is one of the most pleasant/best odors they have ever smelled."
"事实上，"他补充说，"很多人，主要是父母，都会说他们闻过的最好闻的味道就是婴儿的香味了。"
In 2013, Frasnelli co-authored a study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology that looked closely at how women responded to the scent of newborn body odor. He and his colleagues recruited 30 women, including 15 who had just given birth and 15 who had never, and had them each smell the scent of an unfamiliar newborn who was less than 2 days old. The results confirmed what moms everywhere already know: Baby smell is mesmerizing. Brain scans of the participants showed that "body odors from 2 day-old newborns elicit activation in reward-related cerebral areas in women," the study authors wrote. In fact, it didn't appear to matter whether the subjects had previously given birth or not; the brains of women from both categories reacted to the baby smell as if it were a delicious treat, or even a drug.
2013年，弗拉斯内利在《心理学前沿》期刊上合著了一篇研究，仔细观察了女性如何对新生儿宝宝的气味做出反应。他和他的同事招募了30位女性，其中15位刚生完宝宝，而另外15位则没有生孩子的经历，研究员让这些女性闻了刚出生不到2天的婴儿宝宝的气味，这个宝宝是她们都不认识的人。研究结果证实了世界各地母亲都知道的事情："宝宝出生两天后，其气味令人着迷，能激活女性与奖励相关的大脑区域，"研究作者写道。事实上，受试者之前有没有生过孩子并不重要，对于研究中的两类女性而言，她们的大脑对婴儿的气味都做出了反应，就好像那是甜品，甚至是毒品的气味。
译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载
评论
打印
