Wonder why children like certain food? Breast feeding!

William Atkins
Saturday, 16 January 2010 21:41

Science - Health

French and German researchers found that newborn babies form memories of odors found around their mother’s breast while breastfeeding. Such memories have a long-lasting effect on how toddlers react to certain foods and other smells later on in life.


The January 4, 2010 article “Long-lasting memory for an odor acquired at the mother's breast,” was published online in the journal Developmental Science.

According to the abstract of their paper, “Whether neonatal odor memory can persist into toddlerhood and influence behaviors that tap processes related to cognition (attention and exploration), motivation (choice and consumption), and emotion (hedonic processing) remains under-researched.”

Thus, the researchers decided to study if odors smelled by newborn babies can be saved in their memories and recalled when they are toddlers.

Of 37 mothers in France participating in the study, 20 of them used a chamomile mixture from eight to 120 consecutive days after giving birth.

The mothers applied it around their breasts after each nursing session and kept the areas covered with pads to preserve the odor.

Other mothers also breast-fed but did not use the chamomile mixture

Later, at seven months and 21 months, two groups of toddlers were given water to drink. The bottles were either chamomile- or violet-scented.

Page two describes the results.