7 Amazing bonds between baby & mom you never knew existed

In one study, 90 percent of moms were able to identify their newborns by scent alone after having spent as little as ten minutes with them. When the moms spent an hour with their babies, 100 percent of them correctly distinguished their baby's smell among many infants.

Motherly instincts kick in earlier and moms are naturals at figuring out how to soothe and calm a baby. Just ask a fussy baby!

Eye contact is critical in interactions between adults and babies, and also creates emotional attachment in the earlier stages of life.

Even cycles of sleep increase the bond between mom and baby. In the piece, Babies Need Their Mothers Beside Them, by Dr. James J. McKenna, he writes, "Our scientific studies of mother and infants sleeping together have shown how tightly bound together the physiological and social aspects of the mother-infant relationship really are."

Even a mom's voice causes a baby's brain to react. According to a Stanford University study, an infant's brain is more engaged and active when the mother's voice is heard close by. "Many of our social, language and emotional processes are learned by listening to our mom's voice," said Dr. Daniel Abrams, the study's lead author, to Science Daily.

The skin-to-skin contact between a mother and newborn creates a bond that lasts a lifetime. It helps regulate the baby's body temperature and produces a large amount of the "feel good" hormone oxytocin for the mother.

It turns out, women who give birth later in life may live longer. A genetic study found that women who waited until 33 or later to give birth had a higher chance of living until 95, compared with women who had their last child at age 29.