I had earlier (http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-does-child-recognize-his-mom.html) raised a question as to whether toddlers recognize their moms.
A friend of mine had confirmed that they can. Couple of other friends had also told me that they can recognize the smell of their husbands and their children. This was too much. I suspected that they were taking me for a ride. So I decided to get some details.
I focused primarily on babies and their moms. And Googled. And boy did I find some interesting stuff.
Now here is the stuff that I picked up.
Babies recognize their primary care giver (PCG) and is more comfortable with faces that resemble the face of their primary caregiver. (Meaning that in those rare cases where the father is the PCG, then the baby is attracted to male faces resembling those of their father.
Babies recognize the smell of their mothers (mothers breasts apparently) and hence can differentiate, within about 3 days of birth, the smells of their mothers's vis-a-vis others' (http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/pregnancy_articles.asp?id=742). If one of the breast is washed with soap, in order to hide the smell, the baby will avoid that breast. Quote from "Just as the baby rats would die of starvation if their mother’s scent was changed by washing her with soap, so also their mate preference can be manipulated by solely allowing them to be familiar with the scent of lemon. But this does not apply to rats alone: “After mothers apply a perfume to their breasts before nursing for a day or two, infants between one and two weeks old appear to prefer the familiar scent” (Kohl & Francoeur, 1995, p.77). While changing the mother’s scent does not cause a human baby to starve, it does change the scent that the baby prefers."https://www.inforefuge.com/science-of-smell-mother-infant-bonding
Mothers also can recognize the smell of their babies. And these are true of humans, cats, rats (and God knows which other animals) https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2017/11/27/cats-find-own-kittens-by-smell/.
Research indicates that women who have been mothers recently feel differently when they smell the odor of babies (not their own) than women who never had babies.
Quote from https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20050706/babys-nose-knows-moms-smell: "Babies [Baby rats] learn their mother's smell early in life, wiring the scent into their brains, new research shows... {A baby] may be engraving her mother's scent in her mind, making it one of her life's earliest discoveries.
Quote from https://www.inforefuge.com/science-of-smell-mother-infant-bonding: "Pheromones also serve as identifiers. Mothers and children can recognize each other by the pheromones each emits."
In babies, the sense of smell is much better developed than sense of hearing or of vision. The instinct (S1) and keen sense of smell that babies have is a lot like that of animals. As we grow older we develop other senses and also S2 and thus veer away from the nature of animals.
Mothers find the smell of their babies delicious. (Does not mean that moms want to eat their child. It means that the same part of the mom's brain is triggered when they smell their baby as when they see / smell appetizing food.)
I am reminded of the Thirukkural:
குழலினது யாழினிது என்பதும் மக்கள்
மழலைச்சொல் கேளா தவர்.
meaning that only a person who hasn't heard their child speak will think that the sound from a flute or a guitar is wonderful.
Additional reading:
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