Importance of mother/young contact at parturition and across lactation for the expression of maternal behavior in rabbits

Abstract

We prevented mother/pup contact at parturition or across early or midlactation to investigate the importance of such interaction for maintaining maternal behavior in rabbits. When pup contact was prevented across lactation Days 1–7 or 11–17 (by anesthetizing multiparous mothers during the oxytocin-induced milk letdown; Experiment 1), nursing incidence was reduced to 40% and 83%, respectively, on the day following anesthesia withdrawal. Both groups also showed a decreased milk output, long latencies to initiate nursing, and several entrances into the nest box not associated with nursing. In Experiment 2 we prevented mother/litter contact at parturition to determine the specific role of pup contact at this time. We found a reduction in the incidence of nursing on postpartum Day 1 from 80% (in control primiparous mothers) to 33%. By contrast, 100% of both deprived and control multiparous mothers displayed nursing on Day 1. These mothers also showed the unusual behaviors found in Experiment 1 and an extemporaneous nest-building. We conclude that: (a) mother/young contact at parturition is crucial for establishing maternal responsiveness in primiparous does, (b) the experience acquired by raising a previous litter allows the retention of maternal responsiveness despite a lack of pup contact at parturition, (c) maternal responsiveness is maintained across early lactation by daily interaction with pups, and (d) interaction with pups across midlactation allows the finely tuned display of maternal behavior. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 32: 101–111, 1998