If you've ever thought about consuming your baby, don't feel bad, it's totally normal.
A study published in this month's Frontiers in Psychology suggests that the smell of babies triggers the brain's reward centers, which are also activated by certain foods.
Researchers extracted fresh baby smell from the pajamas of 2-day-old infants and presented them to two groups of women. One group was composed of 15 mothers and the other of 15 women who had not given birth.
The results, as explained by the Christian Science Monitor, showed that mothers and non-mothers alike responded similarly to the smell of newborns. "The smells were shown to elicit activation in the women's brains' reward circuits," according to the CS Monitor.
In a news release, University of Montreal researcher and study co-author Johannes Frasnelli said, "Not all odors trigger this reaction. Only those associated with reward, such as food or satisfying a desire, cause this activation.”
The study also found that the reaction was more intense for mothers than for the other group of women.
"It is possible that childbirth causes hormonal changes that alter the reward circuit ... but it is also possible that experience plays a role," Frasnelli said in the release.
As Live Science points out, the research does not address what effects babies' smells have on men since they were not included in the study.
All that said, HuffPost Weird News does not condone feasting on babies. Nor does CS Monitor, which put this update to its post on the study:
Based on responses to this story, I should probably make something absolutely clear: You should never attempt to actually eat a baby.
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