Mothers possess an innate instinct to respond to their newborn child’s cries. A study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology elaborated on the role of cortisol, a stress hormone, in determining mothers’ behaviour towards their children's cries. It revealed that high levels of cortisol in new mothers caused more intrusive parenting for their infants.

Intrusive parenting here means the mother is quick to step in and becomes overly controlling to reduce the discomfort. With this excessively controlling attitude, the infant’s gestures tend to be misinterpreted. So when a baby cries, the mother might immediately rush to feed them without considering other possible reasons for the crying.

Role of cortisol

Cortisol is a stress hormone. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis produces it. And this is very vital to evoke the body’s stress response. With the rise in the cortisol level, the individual’s emotional regulation changes to effectively respond to the stressful stimuli at hand. The researchers drew a correlation between cortisol levels and the maternal brain functions, related to emotional regulation and auditory responses.

Response to the cries of infants

The researchers conducted the study by observing the behaviours, cortisol levels and brain scans of 59 first-time mothers with infants aged 3 to 4 months. The findings indicated that mothers with high cortisol levels are more like to show intrusive behaviours towards their children. They take control to mitigate the stressful situation of the baby crying.

With high cortisol levels, certain regions of the brain show low activity. The areas are: right precentral gyrus for motor planning, superior temporal gyrus for auditory processing, medial frontal gyrus for emotional regulation and culmen for understanding and recognising sounds. The reduced brain activity in these regions with the spike in cortisol levels causes the mothers to be more intrusive. They cannot respond calmly to their infants’ distress. This controlling behaviour might hinder the child’s development. It shows how stress has an impact on maternal behaviour, where mothers quickly intervene without truly assessing the situation and understanding the child’s needs.

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