Mother's Day Special

In honor of Mother’s Day, today we’re featuring two recent science publications on mothering. Enjoy!

Last month a study in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that bees age faster when parenting. Those of us with our own brood at home might respond, “Well, duh!” My (well-covered) gray hair could tell you that.

But now we have proof. Norwegian scientist Daniel Münch wondered why winter bees were much longer lived than summer bees. In the summer, worker bees are mostly busy tending to the queen’s young and only live about two months total. In the winter, there are no young to tend to, and the bees can live up to seven months.

Münch and his colleagues performed the old switcheroo and transferred the winter bees’ hives indoors and brought the lab to more summery conditions. The queen started reproducing and the worker bees began their parenting. Sure enough, they witnessed a quicker decline.

In another experiment, when the scientists removed the young’uns, the worker bees showed no sign of aging. Get me a babysitter! Long-term!

Another recent study demonstrates that a mother’s arms are the best place for a young baby to be in terms of his or her chances of survival. Publishing in Current Biology, Kumi Kuroda and her colleagues determined that human babies and mouse pups alike automatically relax deeply when they are carried.

Whether held in a human mother’s arms or a mouse mom’s mouth, the research team found the infant calming response to maternal carrying is a coordinated set of nervous, motor and cardiac regulations. The scientists propose that it might be an evolutionarily conserved and essential component of mother-infant interaction.

Both mouse and human babies also stop moving when they are carried. And when baby mice are carried, their ultrasonic cries stop, too.

“This infant response reduces maternal burden of carrying and is beneficial for both the mother and the infant,” explains Kuroda, noting how stressful a crying baby can be on a parent.

Unfortunately, the study has no solution for when that calm and relaxed child starts crying again as soon as she is put back down. Further studies, please!

And to all of you moms out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

Image: Firmin Baes/Public Domain