Science may have confirmed what most moms already know: When a woman sees her baby smile, certain areas of her brain activate, stimulating happy feelings.

“There’s a definite biological origin to these feelings that mothers have,” said study author Dr. Lane Strathearn, an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

A woman’s crying infant, or even her baby with a neutral expression, doesn’t evoke the same type of brain response as occurs when her baby is smiling, the study found.

“The contrast that showed the most response in the dopaminergic system of the brain was when a mother’s own baby smiled compared to an unknown baby face.”

“A baby’s smile is a very powerful stimulus,” noted Strathearn. “It makes sense biologically. Babies are completely and utterly dependent on their caregivers.

It makes sense that nature would build in a system that would reinforce that relationship.”

For the study, the researchers recruited 28 first-time mothers during their last trimester of pregnancy.

At that time, Strathearn said the women completed “attachment interviews” to assess the types of experiences they had when being raised and what type of relationship these mothers had with their own parents.

Is your baby sleeping throughout the night? Most of the mothers will experience sleep less nights once after the arrival of their baby.

Here are the wonderful baby sleep products which encourage your baby to sleep well throughout the night.

Establishing a bedtime routine:

For this, you need to settle on a baby massage, a bath, and a story time as your baby’s bedtime ritual. You need to feed your baby, rock the baby for few minutes, place him on the bassinet or crib and then sing a lullaby for him before each nap. For this you need the products like a soft bath towel, soothing bedtime stories and glider or rocker.

Soft bath towel:

Binding your baby in a soft towel after the bath is a very comforting part of your baby’s routine. The best way to make the bath time cozier is to put the bath towel in the dryer for few minutes in order to warm up.

Bedtime stories: Select the bedtime stories that are rhythmic and include various repetitions. The stories must be the ones that you memorize yourself and must be chanting to your baby.

Safe glider or rocker:

The transmitting routes of HIV include breastfeeding, which passes the virus from mothers to infants.

This is a major problem in many areas of Africa, where HIV-positive mothers have no alternative to breastfeeding. So far, no practical and effective methods are available to prevent HIV transmission by this route.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a global epidemic threatening the lives of millions of people.

Because there is no known cure, prevention of the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), is critical for controlling the disease.

A team of researchers from Lavax (Palatine, Ill.) and the University of Illinois at Chicago is developing a new technology that prevents the infection of HIV by breastfeeding.

They have isolated a special strain of probiotic lactobacilli from the human mouth. It belongs to the same species as those found in dairy foods, such as yogurt and kefir. This strain captures the HIV virus by binding to its outer ‘envelope’.

Because it grows and reproduces itself in milk, once an infant is inoculated with the Lactobacillus, the protection may last until the infant is weaned. This technology offers an easily administered alternative to HIV vaccines, which are currently unavailable.

So, finally you are going to hold a baby shower. Baby shower is the best time to pamper the mom-to-be and make her feel very special.

To make the party more memorable, everything should be planned carefully.

Among those things, choosing the baby shower games is the most difficult task, because there are several games where your guests will lose interest easily.

So, picking the right baby shower games is the most essential factor. There are different types of games like: fun games, challenging games and ice breakers.

Here are some of the baby shower games which give great entertainment for your guests:

Fun baby shower games:

Baby sketch game:

In this game, give each guest a pen and paper. Tell them to draw the picture of a baby, but rather than gripping the paper on their laps, they need to put it on their heads.

In order to make drawing easy, keep a magazine or paper plate under the paper. Among those drawings, choose the one that you like most or resembles the baby.

Guessing the baby food:

Nearly one in 10 obstetricians in a new study has considered giving up obstetric practice because of the emotional toll of stillbirths and infant deaths.

Three-quarters of the 804 obstetricians who responded to a survey by researchers at the University of Michigan Health System reported that the experience took a large emotional toll on them personally.

“Our survey reveals that perinatal death has a profound effect on obstetricians, and 8 percent had considered giving up obstetrics because of the emotional difficulty of caring for patients with perinatal death,” says lead author Katherine Gold, M.D., MSW, of U-M’s Department of Family Medicine and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

“We know that stillbirth and infant death are traumatic events for families; this study suggests that they are also traumatic for the physician.”

Approximately 15 percent of pregnancies end in early losses (before 20 weeks gestation). In the United States, 1.3 percent of pregnancies end in either stillbirth (losses after 20 weeks but before delivery) or infant death (deaths in the first year of life, most of which occur in the first week).

On average, the typical obstetrician performing 140 deliveries a year could encounter nearly two dozen women with a miscarriage and one to two with stillbirth or infant death, the study says.

Baby monitor is actually a radio transmitter that allows you to observe your baby without standing near the baby’s crib.

This is a compact and two-part gadget that has a transmitter and a receiver.

Baby monitor is particularly useful at the younger age of your infant.

The monitor alerts whenever your baby wakes up during the night, which means when he needs some changing, feeding or comforting.

Keep the monitor at a distance of 10 feet from your baby so that it can pick up any sounds like crying and moving.

Take the receiver along with you anywhere in the house and keep it plugged.

Most of the new models allow your baby to hear your soothing sound or allow you to see your baby with the help of a camera.

Tips to consider while buying baby monitor:

The monitor should be compact: Select the smaller model so that you can carry it around the house.

Buy a low battery indicator: Buy the monitor that alerts you whenever the battery needs replacement.

A new arrival in the family is a momentous occasion in the life of every parent.

Usually, the family members express their affection and love towards the newborn baby by presenting him or her with best wishes, gifts and their love.

Gifting the baby with special baby jewelry is best choice to welcome the newborn baby [Different types of baby gifts].

Actually, the jewelry signifies love, pride, affection and fashion sense. Baby jewelry is the nice way to express your love and admiration for your child.

Generally jewelry gifts for babies include: baby bracelets, baby pendants, baby studs, and baby bangles. The most popular choice among the baby jewelry is baby studs.

Today, most of the parents are piercing the ears of the babies during the infancy because the skin of the infant is delicate and it is less painful for them. Your baby really looks very beautiful in an elegant pair of earrings.

Baby bracelets also look very cute. The most popular choice is bangle bracelets in gold and silver. Also, bracelet is considered as one of the safest ornaments adorned by the babies.

A new study suggests that couples expecting their first child should reconsider owning a cat if they have a family history of eczema.

Eczema, which causes itchy, flaky skin and affects up to one in five children, tends to run in families.

Newborn babies with a defective inherited gene are more likely to develop the painful skin condition if they are exposed to cats, scientists have discovered.

Researchers have uncovered a link between the disease and a specific inherited gene which normally works by producing a protein which protects the skin.

However, in around one in ten children the gene does not work properly, leaving them more prone to allergy.

Researchers compared a high-risk group of 379 Danish infants who had the defective gene with a group of 593 babies from the general population in Manchester.

In both groups, they found that children with the defective gene were twice as likely to develop eczema during their first year of life as those without the genetic faults.

However, the study showed that having a cat further increased the risk of developing the disease.

The scientists said that they were unsure how exposure to cats was linked to the development of eczema.