Latest news with #ChristineParsons
Daily Mail
07-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
No more excuses! Men DON'T sleep through the sound of a baby crying, experts reveal
It's a well-worn trope that mothers will wake at the slightest stir from their baby while fathers peacefully doze on. But scientists now say that dads have no excuses for missing midnight nappy changes. Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark found that men were just as likely to be woken by the sounds of crying as women. While women were slightly more likely to be woken by 'whisper level' sounds, computer modelling shows this cannot explain why they do so much more of the care. The researchers monitored 142 non-parents while they slept and recorded how often they woke up in response to the sound of a baby crying. Women were, on average, about 14 per cent more likely to wake up to sounds between 33 and 44 decibels - about as loud as birdsong or a library. However, men and women woke with the same frequency as soon as the volume started to approach that of a real baby's crying. Lead researcher Professor Christine Parsons told MailOnline: 'We had participants all waking up and we didn't have evidence that men were sleeping through.' Scientists have busted the myth that men are more likely to sleep through a baby's crying than women, finding only minor differences in how the sexes respond to nighttime noises Although the idea that men can sleep through their baby's crying is a myth, there are real reasons to think that women might wake up more frequently in the night. Studies have shown that women tend to report more disturbed sleep overall, regardless of sounds. Likewise, research suggests that women might be more sensitive to high-pitched sounds. However, Professor Parsons' research, published in the journal Emotion, shows that any differences only translate into small changes in waking patterns when the sounds are very quiet. More importantly, these small statistical differences cannot explain the large gap in care burdens. In a second trial, the researchers gave 117 first-time Danish parents an app to log their nighttime care over a week. Then, the researchers used simulations to predict what that distribution of nighttime care would look like if the only factor were those differences found by the first study. Professor Parsons says: 'What we found was that women did 75 per cent of the nighttime caregiving. 'If we estimate how much caregiving would emerge from that small difference [in sound responses], it would look much more equal between men and women.' What this shows is that inherent biological or psychological differences in how men and women respond to sounds in the night cannot explain why women do more of the care. These findings come in stark contrast to the extremely widespread myth that men aren't as easily woken by their children. In particular, Professor Parsons singled out an influential but unscientific survey funded by Lemsip, which claimed that the sound of the wind or the buzz of a fly were more likely to wake men than the sound of a child crying. While these findings weren't peer-reviewed and had no scientific merit whatsoever, these ideas have spread extremely far. Professor Parsons says: 'When I talk to scientists at conferences, they have actually heard of it and say, "Wasn't there that paper on waking behaviour?"' 'But these are phantom papers and phantom ideas, and if an idea confirms a suspicion or a belief that people have, then it is very difficult to change people's minds about it.' The study focused on adults without children in order to see whether pre-parenthood gender differences alone affected nighttime care patterns. However, pregnancy and childbirth cause massive hormonal changes that might affect waking times. There are also good reasons why new mothers might get up more in the night, especially if they are breastfeeding. Similarly, men in the OECD receive an average of 2.3 weeks of parental leave compared to 18.5 weeks for women. This means women get more practice caring for babies at night and don't have to wake up for work in the morning. All of these other factors, alongside societal expectations, are likely to be important in explaining why women do so much more of the nightly care. Professor Parsons says: 'I'm not excluding any of those things, but this is not really what our paper is about. 'What we were trying to test is a very specific question about how men and women can or cannot sleep through different types of sounds.' ABOUT CIRCIDIAN RHYTHMS Our internal circadian rhythms, or circadian clock, is responsible for waking our bodies up in the morning and ensuring they get a good night's rest. In a healthy person, cortisol levels peak at around 8am, which wakes us up (in theory), and drop to their lowest at 3am the next day, before rising back to its peak five hours later. Ideally, this 8am peak will be triggered by exposure to sunlight, if not an alarm. When it does, the adrenal glands and brain will start pumping adrenaline. By mid-morning, the cortisol levels start dropping, while the adrenaline (for energy) and serotonin (a mood stabilizer) keep pumping. At midday, metabolism and core body temperature ramp up, getting us hungry and ready to eat. After noon, cortisol levels start their steady decline. Metabolism slows down and tiredness sets in. Gradually the serotonin turns into melatonin, which induces sleepiness. Our blood sugar levels decrease, and at 3am, when we are in the middle of our sleep, cortisol levels hit a 24-hour low.
CTV News
07-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Are men more likely to sleep through a baby's cries?
Recent research from Aarhus University in Denmark has contested a widely accepted aspect of parenting – that women or mothers are 'hardwired' and more likely to wake up to a baby's cries than men. There were barely any differences between how men and women reacted to auditory stimuli, the research showed. Women were only slightly more responsive than men to sounds at a lower volume. However, women or mothers were three times more likely to wake up during the night to respond to or check on their child, according to the study. Published in the journal of the American Psychological Association, the first study, which had 140 adult participants between the ages of 18 to 42 without children, showed that there was no difference in the waking patterns of men and women. Christine Parsons, professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University and one of the study's authors, told CTV that women woke up with a slightly higher probability, but only to sounds at a 'whisper-level volume.' There were two kinds of sounds played through the mobile application used as a testing method for the study: a baby's cry and an alarm. 'It allowed us to detect with really high precision how quickly men and women were able to wake up to these sounds,' Parsons said. 'And then we could compare.' The second study, consisting of 224 first-time parents, showed the differences in how many times men and women woke up for nighttime caregiving. The study's participants answered a questionnaire every morning for seven days about their sleep and overnight caregiving, along with their partners'. 'We know a lot about what mothers and fathers do during the day, but surprisingly, there have been relatively few studies looking at nighttime care,' Parsons said. 'And that's actually the part of parenthood that's really challenging.' 'Important conversations' There are other societal factors like parental leave that can shape caregiving behaviours, according to parenting and psychiatry experts. Dr. Shimi Kang, clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia, told CTV this study reflects 'important conversations that are happening in our society and culture.' Kang points out that pregnancy and the post-pregnancy period involve important variables that can lead to significant physiological changes in women. The study also highlights the impact of social factors, particularly parental leave policies. 'Mothers have substantially more earmarked parental leave available to them than fathers on average, which generally leads to greater maternal time with an infant in the postnatal period,' the study said. 'Mothers are also the primary users of leave entitlements that can be shared between parents, resulting in different opportunities for engaging in infant care in the early months postpartum.' Kang acknowledges the study's findings on gender and women's perceived or assumed responsibility for a baby's overnight care. 'The women's brain has more empathy. The centres of empathy are bigger,' Kang explains. 'So maybe there's more empathy, compassion to want to console this infant, on the positive.' 'On the negative, there's this feeling of guilt and societal messages that drive her to do that.' Men, however, may have a greater sense of confidence and less guilt, she said. But the negative aspect could be feelings of laziness and selfishness. Kang added that although there are some factors that are determined by society like nurturing behaviour that determines the roles of men and women, these roles are not fixed. 'I think that parenting is a time of huge stress. There is a mental health crisis (and) sleep deprivation is on the rise. Parents are one of the most stressed groups,' she said. 'And I think for people, having these kinds of conversations about roles and responsibilities as much as they can is really good for all parties involved – and for society in general.'
