9 ms·

Looking into the T drop in fatherhood, the original study seems to account for self reports of 'sleep quality' but I wonder if sleep deprivation is not still a

Looking into the T drop in fatherhood, the original study seems to account for self reports of 'sleep quality' but I wonder if sleep deprivation is not still a confounder in this finding. Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production. Also I think parents in general will also have strong bias to not want to acknowledge their own child as a 'nuissance' in a survey/questionnaire. My key point is that it would be important to reproduce this finding with actual sleep tracking instead of self-reporting sleep quality, to confirm if this is indeed linked with a bonding/interaction mechanism with a child or an unfortunate secondary effect of sleep deprivation.

reallydontask 7y ago
> Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production. When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week. I know I could only survive on this little sleep because I wasn't exercising. > Also I think parents in general will also have strong bias to not want to acknowledge their own child as a 'nuissance' in a survey/questionnaire. I think this is one of the biggest taboos in Western society: Anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive This is absolute bullshit I can see the downsides of having a child without loving him (in my case) any less
- jbverschoor 7y ago
  Thank oh for being honest. There’s actually a topic on a different forum that is exactly about the taboo’ed negative things about parenting. People refuse to see/acknowledge this, esp. women.
  - mffnbs 7y ago
    People would respect you more if you kept the sexist bullshit to yourself. Or better yet, the reply that you will inevitably have to this comment? Don't post it and instead reflect on why one might view you as sexist, then attempt to change your behavior to reflect what you've learned.
    - afiori 7y ago
      Not the same person, but it was not necessarily sexist. Not everyone is trained in the art of threading the line between offense and social justice. The same meaning could (possibly) have been written in SJW terms
  - sundvor 7y ago
    Being a dad, whilst rewarding in its own rights, can also be hard AF. Throw in a diagnosis of ASD+ADHD with therapies etc that must be managed, and the pressures just sky rocketed. Managing his behaviour feels like an everlasting uphill battle. So much energy is drained, especially during meltdowns, causing frictions in the whole family. So in order to be able to look after him I also need to look after myself. Getting enough sleep, some decompression time, looking after my body and still performing well at work is an everlasting struggle. I don't expect people not in my situation to understand. At least I'm lucky in that it's "high functioning" we're talking about, even as much as a lot of people take objection to that term. But I know with effort he has every opportunity to thrive. Nonetheless, in a market where as an engineer you need to stay on top of new stuff constantly ... yep, it's tough. We do it because we must. Edit: Some additional thoughts. As difficult as it sometimes is, being a parent is also a source of great joy. The responsibilities truly grow you as a person, and you kind of learn to cope. It's not something that's all at once either, I mean, you take it day by day, and you just learn. As for work, for me it has helped that I'm truly passionate about what I'm doing, so have enjoyed learning about the new tech. I'm not saying I've got the same amount of talent, but it's amazing what persistence and a lot of deep dives into e.g Pluralsight can offer. As I grow older I'm more aware of my limitations, and picking the right horses (not just one) is über important. Picking the right employer is equally important; being up front about the situation can yield amazing results.
- mockingbirdy 7y ago
  I think you can enjoy some Louis CK on parenthood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5jAUgJATAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5jAUgJATAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166L3cE3zyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166L3cE3zyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJAOfHlREA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJAOfHlREA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cubu_JeaV2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cubu_JeaV2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u27b7bAY1ro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u27b7bAY1ro
- DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
  I haven't noticed the "anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive" in my group of friends, especially my work colleagues. I've been pretty straight forward about how hard the whole thing has been, especially adding a second child to the mix before the first one was 2 yo. I wouldn't recommend having a second child to anyone unless they really, really wanted it. It's hard af. Logarithmically harder than one.
  - jkestner 7y ago
    Maybe the only constant is that every child is different. We had two close together, and it became a net positive about two years in, when they could keep each other occupied much of the time. And they'll have a built-in best friend. We talk about our personal perspective, but what do you wish your parents did for you?
    - mkane848 7y ago
      That's assuming things go well. My two older siblings are, uh, let's just say they're not very close and dealing with them growing up was an experience in and of itself.
  - mleo 7y ago
    I can see the social media aspect of presenting the perfect child persona, but it is BS. Going to three is exponentially harder. With two, one parent can usually manage both or worse each can manage one kid. Go to three and parents are outnumbered. And generally only two kids ever get along at one time, so there always the outlier. Even numbers are best it seems.
    - m_coder 7y ago
      And moving to five children is another level. :) Parenting is what you do not a side project. Also the effects of parenting are more like keeping a good culture going and showing what are healthy ways of relating so that children can relate well to each other and enjoy being part of the family.
    - 7y ago
- matwood 7y ago
  Reminds me of this article I saw the other day. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-makes-you-happier-but-only-when-they-move-out/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-mak... People with kids are happier than those without, only after their kids move out.
  - dhimes 7y ago
    My last child moves out (to college) next week. We'll see. It's been pretty cool raising them, and now that they are young men it's fun and hilarious to get them all together. For a few years it was very stressful, and life always revolved around them (I was pretty active in their life). I expect that it'll be pretty different. Maybe I'll get some T back!
- nradov 7y ago
  Lack of exercise doesn't necessarily make it easier to survive sleep deprivation. It would be rather the opposite for most people since some moderate exercise tends to improve the quality of the limited sleep that you do get.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    Exercise helps you sleep better, so if you don’t exercise, you already sleep like crap and the other stuff doesn’t make a difference.
- koolba 7y ago
  > When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week. Assuming you have the space for it, I never understood couples that insist on both parents being woken up every night by a newborn. Much better for everyone involved to trade off nightly so that the other person can get a full nights rest. I'm 99% certain that no baby cares that only one parent is being disturbed.
  - saganus 7y ago
    I'm not a parent so my knowledge here is pretty scarce, but what I've understood from friends that have kids, is that when a baby wakes up, both parents wake up due to instinct (i.e. is the baby ok?). So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed. Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this?
    - phalangion 7y ago
      I think early on with a new baby, both parents wake up more due to novelty than instinct. When you're used to not having a crying child in the middle of the night, suddenly having one takes some adjustment. Since my wife nursed the kids, our arrangement was that she would be up with babies at night almost every time, and I would be up with them in the morning when they decided that 5am was time to be up for the day. Over time, I stopped waking up to baby cries at night, but I am now hyper-attuned to child noises from 5-7am.
    - koolba 7y ago
      > So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed. > Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this? That's what I meant by "Assuming you have the space for it...". If the baby is in a separate room and there's space for a bed or mattress, whoever is "on-call" stays there and the other parent gets an uninterrupted nights sleep. Or the reverse and the "resting" parent goes and sleeps on the couch. 7-8 hours uninterrupted on a couch wins over repeated interruptions on a bed. Same system works if you have a grandma visiting to take over for a night. There's no merit badge given out for everyone being equally sleep deprived. It's just worse for everyone, including the baby. If the mother is directly breast feeding then likely she's going to be taking the heavier end of this load. If the baby is formula fed or she's pumping, there's more leeway to switch off.
- digitallogic 7y ago
  > I know I could only survive on this little sleep because I wasn't exercising. And exercise itself has a major influence on T levels.
- wil421 7y ago
  >I think this is one of the biggest taboos in Western society: Anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive This is absolute bullshit I’m about to have a child in the next 2 weeks and that’s not my experience. Pretty much all my friends and family with kids have been telling me about the “fun” and “positive” sleeping experience I’m about to have. They keep saying how the Nth child was terrible or didn’t sleep etc.
dmurray 7y ago
The results still seem valid even if the primary mechanism for decreasing testosterone production is a lack of sleep.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- DoingIsLearning 7y ago
  Absolutely true, however the linked piece (not the study) seems to imply that there is some form of evolutionary mechanism which relates to the bonding experience with a newborn/toddler that somehow helps the father 'stay around' to raise a child. I can see that there are mechanisms at play that favour the father to 'stay around'. But specifically for the Testosterone concentrations it seems to me that the cause could have nothing to do with an endocrine change triggered by bonding or nurturing.
drakonka 7y ago
I am not an expert in this field and wonder if the _cause_ of the testosterone drop necessarily has to affect the outcome of bonding/nurturing behaviour? For example, maybe all or part of the testosterone drop _is_ due to the degraded sleep quality. If that drop then still results in them being more motivated to bond with their child and less motivated to find other partners, the effect seems to be the same - the man is then still better primed for parenthood.
- leet_thow 7y ago
  It is hypothesized in evolutionary psychology that the testosterone drop is so that males will not be attracted to their daughters. I remember this from reading the "Evolution of Desire."
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
belorn 7y ago
I always view articles skeptically when they talk about testosterone as effecting behavior. Most modern studies tend to conclude that testosterone levels changes after changed behavior rather than before, and artificially lowering or increasing testosterone within human levels does not usually have any measurable effect on behavior. For example, the article stated that there is a correlation between lower testosterone and more caregiving and baby-related household tasks. What would surprise me however is if the finding would stand if they made a second study which gave a supraphysiological dose of testosterone to even out the difference in testosterone. My prediction is that the same variation of caregiving and baby-related household tasks would remain. A prime example of that there is a correlation between testosterone and voting for the winning team in politics and sports. Measure testosterone after an election and men who has higher testosterone will have a higher rate of having voted for the winning party. Obviously, before the election there is no such correlation, so we can fairly rational make the conclusion that having more testosterone does not make a person a better judge of who is going to win.
- sweeneyrod 7y ago
  It's possible (and indeed seems very likely) that testosterone and behaviour both affect each other.
  - belorn 7y ago
    Indeed testosterone and behavior both affect each other. I have however several reasons why I am skeptical when people focus exclusively on testosterone as effecting behavior. One larger reason, as given by a professor in neuroendocrinology, is that people and researchers alike tend to view behavior as soft science and hormones as hard science. There has been (and still are) a lot of resistance to the idea that behavior alone can cause biological changes in the body. The second reason is that again and again, when people try to test a correlation between a hormone and behavior by supraphysiological doses, the predicted behavior does not occur. The third reason is that the general role of sex hormones is to regulate the body in favor of reproductive success. The generally accepted theory to explain why testosterone goes up by having voted on the winning team, or by winning a competition, or by winning a physical fight, is that the individual perceive themselves as having gained social rank and thus the body adjust testosterone levels accordingly. Any behavior that does not have a clear link to reproductive success is unlikely to be regulated by a sex hormone.
anonu 7y ago
Correct. The same applies for post-partum depression which many attribute to an increase in new hormones in the women's body. But how much of this effect is attributable to simple sleep deprivation?
- rubidium 7y ago
  There’s a definite difference. There’s some pretty normal post baby blues for many moms that is a mix of hormones + sleep. But post partum depression is a different animal entirely and takes a lot of support and good council.
- magduf 7y ago
  You gotta wonder how much all of this is due to sleep deprivation. None of these things make any sense evolutionarily, either PP depression or fathers losing their testosterone. So how much is due to things that are a product of modern society, rather than biology?
learnstats2 7y ago
I'm not sure I would describe this as a confounder in this context - if fatherhood results in sleep deprivation which results in testosterone levels dropping, then fatherhood generally results in testosterone levels dropping.
paultopia 7y ago
I was wondering this too. Every new parent seems to report that they basically don't sleep for a year or two. That has got to account for a lot of the biological changes in parenthood. (Honestly, I'd really want to know about likelihood of dying in a car accident or other heavy machinery sleep-deprivation-induced-screwup.)
- epx 7y ago
  Too much exaggeration on this.
- legooolas 7y ago
  > Every new parent seems to report that they basically don't sleep for a year or two I'm a new parent, and I'm pleased to say that our 5-week-old is sleeping really, really well. I was not expecting this after all the horror stories others told... I did, however, feel like I aged about 10 years in the first week as my other half had an emergency C-section and I had to do everything for both her and the baby. Nothing like getting thrown in at the deep end! :D
  - shadowtree 7y ago
    Sleep patterns will change drastically for years to come, don't worry. A 5 week old is very different than a 18 months old.
- tlear 7y ago
  It is the martyrdom story that is dumb. There are two of you there is absolutely zero reason for both not to have decent sleep. First couple weeks sure after that.. get a second bed, couch whatever. Separation of concern works way better one takes care of the kids other takes care of $$.
  - rdtwo 7y ago
    Seems easy when you aren’t living it. Maybe one day you will find out that things aren’t so simple

reallydontask 7y ago

> Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production. When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week. I know I could only survive on this little sleep because I wasn't exercising. > Also I think parents in general will also have strong bias to not want to acknowledge their own child as a 'nuissance' in a survey/questionnaire. I think this is one of the biggest taboos in Western society: Anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive This is absolute bullshit I can see the downsides of having a child without loving him (in my case) any less

jbverschoor 7y ago
Thank oh for being honest. There’s actually a topic on a different forum that is exactly about the taboo’ed negative things about parenting. People refuse to see/acknowledge this, esp. women.
- mffnbs 7y ago
  People would respect you more if you kept the sexist bullshit to yourself. Or better yet, the reply that you will inevitably have to this comment? Don't post it and instead reflect on why one might view you as sexist, then attempt to change your behavior to reflect what you've learned.
  - afiori 7y ago
    Not the same person, but it was not necessarily sexist. Not everyone is trained in the art of threading the line between offense and social justice. The same meaning could (possibly) have been written in SJW terms
- sundvor 7y ago
  Being a dad, whilst rewarding in its own rights, can also be hard AF. Throw in a diagnosis of ASD+ADHD with therapies etc that must be managed, and the pressures just sky rocketed. Managing his behaviour feels like an everlasting uphill battle. So much energy is drained, especially during meltdowns, causing frictions in the whole family. So in order to be able to look after him I also need to look after myself. Getting enough sleep, some decompression time, looking after my body and still performing well at work is an everlasting struggle. I don't expect people not in my situation to understand. At least I'm lucky in that it's "high functioning" we're talking about, even as much as a lot of people take objection to that term. But I know with effort he has every opportunity to thrive. Nonetheless, in a market where as an engineer you need to stay on top of new stuff constantly ... yep, it's tough. We do it because we must. Edit: Some additional thoughts. As difficult as it sometimes is, being a parent is also a source of great joy. The responsibilities truly grow you as a person, and you kind of learn to cope. It's not something that's all at once either, I mean, you take it day by day, and you just learn. As for work, for me it has helped that I'm truly passionate about what I'm doing, so have enjoyed learning about the new tech. I'm not saying I've got the same amount of talent, but it's amazing what persistence and a lot of deep dives into e.g Pluralsight can offer. As I grow older I'm more aware of my limitations, and picking the right horses (not just one) is über important. Picking the right employer is equally important; being up front about the situation can yield amazing results.
mockingbirdy 7y ago
I think you can enjoy some Louis CK on parenthood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5jAUgJATAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5jAUgJATAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166L3cE3zyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166L3cE3zyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJAOfHlREA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJAOfHlREA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cubu_JeaV2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cubu_JeaV2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u27b7bAY1ro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u27b7bAY1ro
DrAwdeOccarim 7y ago
I haven't noticed the "anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive" in my group of friends, especially my work colleagues. I've been pretty straight forward about how hard the whole thing has been, especially adding a second child to the mix before the first one was 2 yo. I wouldn't recommend having a second child to anyone unless they really, really wanted it. It's hard af. Logarithmically harder than one.
- jkestner 7y ago
  Maybe the only constant is that every child is different. We had two close together, and it became a net positive about two years in, when they could keep each other occupied much of the time. And they'll have a built-in best friend. We talk about our personal perspective, but what do you wish your parents did for you?
  - mkane848 7y ago
    That's assuming things go well. My two older siblings are, uh, let's just say they're not very close and dealing with them growing up was an experience in and of itself.
- mleo 7y ago
  I can see the social media aspect of presenting the perfect child persona, but it is BS. Going to three is exponentially harder. With two, one parent can usually manage both or worse each can manage one kid. Go to three and parents are outnumbered. And generally only two kids ever get along at one time, so there always the outlier. Even numbers are best it seems.
  - m_coder 7y ago
    And moving to five children is another level. :) Parenting is what you do not a side project. Also the effects of parenting are more like keeping a good culture going and showing what are healthy ways of relating so that children can relate well to each other and enjoy being part of the family.
  - 7y ago
matwood 7y ago
Reminds me of this article I saw the other day. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-makes-you-happier-but-only-when-they-move-out/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-mak... People with kids are happier than those without, only after their kids move out.
- dhimes 7y ago
  My last child moves out (to college) next week. We'll see. It's been pretty cool raising them, and now that they are young men it's fun and hilarious to get them all together. For a few years it was very stressful, and life always revolved around them (I was pretty active in their life). I expect that it'll be pretty different. Maybe I'll get some T back!
nradov 7y ago
Lack of exercise doesn't necessarily make it easier to survive sleep deprivation. It would be rather the opposite for most people since some moderate exercise tends to improve the quality of the limited sleep that you do get.
- philwelch 7y ago
  Exercise helps you sleep better, so if you don’t exercise, you already sleep like crap and the other stuff doesn’t make a difference.
koolba 7y ago
> When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week. Assuming you have the space for it, I never understood couples that insist on both parents being woken up every night by a newborn. Much better for everyone involved to trade off nightly so that the other person can get a full nights rest. I'm 99% certain that no baby cares that only one parent is being disturbed.
- saganus 7y ago
  I'm not a parent so my knowledge here is pretty scarce, but what I've understood from friends that have kids, is that when a baby wakes up, both parents wake up due to instinct (i.e. is the baby ok?). So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed. Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this?
  - phalangion 7y ago
    I think early on with a new baby, both parents wake up more due to novelty than instinct. When you're used to not having a crying child in the middle of the night, suddenly having one takes some adjustment. Since my wife nursed the kids, our arrangement was that she would be up with babies at night almost every time, and I would be up with them in the morning when they decided that 5am was time to be up for the day. Over time, I stopped waking up to baby cries at night, but I am now hyper-attuned to child noises from 5-7am.
  - koolba 7y ago
    > So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed. > Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this? That's what I meant by "Assuming you have the space for it...". If the baby is in a separate room and there's space for a bed or mattress, whoever is "on-call" stays there and the other parent gets an uninterrupted nights sleep. Or the reverse and the "resting" parent goes and sleeps on the couch. 7-8 hours uninterrupted on a couch wins over repeated interruptions on a bed. Same system works if you have a grandma visiting to take over for a night. There's no merit badge given out for everyone being equally sleep deprived. It's just worse for everyone, including the baby. If the mother is directly breast feeding then likely she's going to be taking the heavier end of this load. If the baby is formula fed or she's pumping, there's more leeway to switch off.
digitallogic 7y ago
> I know I could only survive on this little sleep because I wasn't exercising. And exercise itself has a major influence on T levels.
wil421 7y ago
>I think this is one of the biggest taboos in Western society: Anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive This is absolute bullshit I’m about to have a child in the next 2 weeks and that’s not my experience. Pretty much all my friends and family with kids have been telling me about the “fun” and “positive” sleeping experience I’m about to have. They keep saying how the Nth child was terrible or didn’t sleep etc.

dmurray 7y ago

The results still seem valid even if the primary mechanism for decreasing testosterone production is a lack of sleep.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
DoingIsLearning 7y ago
Absolutely true, however the linked piece (not the study) seems to imply that there is some form of evolutionary mechanism which relates to the bonding experience with a newborn/toddler that somehow helps the father 'stay around' to raise a child. I can see that there are mechanisms at play that favour the father to 'stay around'. But specifically for the Testosterone concentrations it seems to me that the cause could have nothing to do with an endocrine change triggered by bonding or nurturing.

drakonka 7y ago

I am not an expert in this field and wonder if the _cause_ of the testosterone drop necessarily has to affect the outcome of bonding/nurturing behaviour? For example, maybe all or part of the testosterone drop _is_ due to the degraded sleep quality. If that drop then still results in them being more motivated to bond with their child and less motivated to find other partners, the effect seems to be the same - the man is then still better primed for parenthood.

leet_thow 7y ago
It is hypothesized in evolutionary psychology that the testosterone drop is so that males will not be attracted to their daughters. I remember this from reading the "Evolution of Desire."

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

belorn 7y ago

I always view articles skeptically when they talk about testosterone as effecting behavior. Most modern studies tend to conclude that testosterone levels changes after changed behavior rather than before, and artificially lowering or increasing testosterone within human levels does not usually have any measurable effect on behavior. For example, the article stated that there is a correlation between lower testosterone and more caregiving and baby-related household tasks. What would surprise me however is if the finding would stand if they made a second study which gave a supraphysiological dose of testosterone to even out the difference in testosterone. My prediction is that the same variation of caregiving and baby-related household tasks would remain. A prime example of that there is a correlation between testosterone and voting for the winning team in politics and sports. Measure testosterone after an election and men who has higher testosterone will have a higher rate of having voted for the winning party. Obviously, before the election there is no such correlation, so we can fairly rational make the conclusion that having more testosterone does not make a person a better judge of who is going to win.

sweeneyrod 7y ago
It's possible (and indeed seems very likely) that testosterone and behaviour both affect each other.
- belorn 7y ago
  Indeed testosterone and behavior both affect each other. I have however several reasons why I am skeptical when people focus exclusively on testosterone as effecting behavior. One larger reason, as given by a professor in neuroendocrinology, is that people and researchers alike tend to view behavior as soft science and hormones as hard science. There has been (and still are) a lot of resistance to the idea that behavior alone can cause biological changes in the body. The second reason is that again and again, when people try to test a correlation between a hormone and behavior by supraphysiological doses, the predicted behavior does not occur. The third reason is that the general role of sex hormones is to regulate the body in favor of reproductive success. The generally accepted theory to explain why testosterone goes up by having voted on the winning team, or by winning a competition, or by winning a physical fight, is that the individual perceive themselves as having gained social rank and thus the body adjust testosterone levels accordingly. Any behavior that does not have a clear link to reproductive success is unlikely to be regulated by a sex hormone.

anonu 7y ago

Correct. The same applies for post-partum depression which many attribute to an increase in new hormones in the women's body. But how much of this effect is attributable to simple sleep deprivation?

rubidium 7y ago
There’s a definite difference. There’s some pretty normal post baby blues for many moms that is a mix of hormones + sleep. But post partum depression is a different animal entirely and takes a lot of support and good council.
magduf 7y ago
You gotta wonder how much all of this is due to sleep deprivation. None of these things make any sense evolutionarily, either PP depression or fathers losing their testosterone. So how much is due to things that are a product of modern society, rather than biology?

learnstats2 7y ago

I'm not sure I would describe this as a confounder in this context - if fatherhood results in sleep deprivation which results in testosterone levels dropping, then fatherhood generally results in testosterone levels dropping.

paultopia 7y ago

I was wondering this too. Every new parent seems to report that they basically don't sleep for a year or two. That has got to account for a lot of the biological changes in parenthood. (Honestly, I'd really want to know about likelihood of dying in a car accident or other heavy machinery sleep-deprivation-induced-screwup.)

epx 7y ago
Too much exaggeration on this.
legooolas 7y ago
> Every new parent seems to report that they basically don't sleep for a year or two I'm a new parent, and I'm pleased to say that our 5-week-old is sleeping really, really well. I was not expecting this after all the horror stories others told... I did, however, feel like I aged about 10 years in the first week as my other half had an emergency C-section and I had to do everything for both her and the baby. Nothing like getting thrown in at the deep end! :D
- shadowtree 7y ago
  Sleep patterns will change drastically for years to come, don't worry. A 5 week old is very different than a 18 months old.
tlear 7y ago
It is the martyrdom story that is dumb. There are two of you there is absolutely zero reason for both not to have decent sleep. First couple weeks sure after that.. get a second bed, couch whatever. Separation of concern works way better one takes care of the kids other takes care of $$.
- rdtwo 7y ago
  Seems easy when you aren’t living it. Maybe one day you will find out that things aren’t so simple