2023-05-30 12:38:05
You probably don’t turn your hand around to change your own child’s poopy diaper. That of another child, on the other hand… yuck! Why do we find the faeces of our own offspring less dirty?
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You won’t be the first to notice. Can changing someone else’s child’s diaper be quite an ehh…. being an unsavory job, with your own child it’s not that annoying at all and sometimes even fun. Is it really the case that your own offspring’s poopy diaper smells less than another child’s? Australian scientists decided to check it out. They let mothers smell their own baby’s dirty diapers and those of another child. Indeed, they found their own child’s poopy diapers less dirty. Even when the diapers were changed intentionally, they were less disgusted by their own child’s diapers than those of another’s child.
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Changing is less tedious
This study has been conducted among only a few parents, explains Josh Tybur, professor of Psychology and Infectious Diseases at VU Amsterdam. But according to him it really is true that we have less aversion to our own child’s stool than to someone else’s. He has not only experienced it himself, for example, he finds changing his now ten-month-old son much less annoying than he had previously thought, it can also be explained by science.
Faeces can be sickening
It is logical that we find the faeces, but also saliva and vomit, of someone else dirty, he explains. ‘Because these can contain viruses and other pathogens. It can make you sick, so it’s wise to stay far away from it. That’s why we have a natural aversion to this. But it’s hard to run away from your child’s dirty diaper: your child needs your care. So the fact that you can handle the smell better is probably an old evolutionary mechanism that helps you to take good care of your child.’
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Getting used to the poop smell
So it’s a clever trick of nature, so that we don’t hover over the changing table with our child. But how exactly does this work? One possible explanation is that we got used to the smell, says Tyber. ‘Because you change your child from birth, you get used to the smell of his faeces and you may find it less dirty.’ While the smell of another child’s dirty diaper is new to you, and therefore perhaps more repulsive.
Odorless substances in stool
But it could also be that there are certain substances in our children’s stools that make us think it smells less. This is what Mariska Kret, professor of Cognitive Psychology at Leiden University, tells us. ‘Chemo signals are substances that are often odorless and that we spread through our sweat, among other things. Although we perceive them subconsciously, they can influence our behavior. For example, they play a role in sexual attraction.’
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Your own child smells the best
‘It could be that these chemosignals are also present in the faeces. We may recognize the chemo signals we unconsciously smell when we open our child’s diaper as ‘own’, because their genes are half the same as ours. ‘It’s the same mechanism as why you think your own child smells so good. That also helps you to take good care of your child.’
Image: GettyImages
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