Parenthood ‘inoculates’ adults against disgust, new study reveals. Repeated, long-term exposure to bodily waste significantly reduces parents’ disgust responses, with effects that persist over time. This may also be relevant for workers in professions where managing disgust is part of the job.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2026/january/parenthood-inoculates-adults-against-disgust.html
43 Comments
As somebody who worked in a piggery when they were younger, it was amazing preparation for parenthood.
**Parenthood ‘inoculates’ adults against disgust, new study reveals**
From nappy changes to nursing care, exposure to unpleasant substances is a daily reality for millions of people but how does the brain adapt? New research from neuroscientists at the University of Bristol reveals that **repeated, long-term exposure to bodily waste significantly reduces parents’ disgust responses, with effects that persist over time.**
The findings, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, offer fresh insight into how caregiving reshapes the brain and **could help inform strategies to support workers in professions where managing disgust is part of the job.**
Many professions require regular contact with unpleasant substances, including bodily waste, making some roles difficult to recruit and retain staff. Researchers from Bristol sought to better understand how disgust functions, with the aim of identifying ways to help people cope with it more effectively.
“Parenthood dramatically increases exposure to these substances, and people do not choose to become, or stop being, parents based on disgust. This makes it an ideal ‘natural experiment’ for studying how disgust changes over time.”
As expected, non-parents showed strong avoidance of images depicting bodily waste. Parents, however, displayed a strikingly different pattern but only once their children had begun eating solid food.
Parents of weaning or weaned children showed little to no behavioural avoidance of soiled nappies or even general bodily effluvia. Their disgust response appeared noticeably reduced, suggesting that prolonged, unavoidable exposure had led to desensitisation. Importantly, this reduced disgust was not limited to child-related stimuli but generalised to other forms of bodily waste.
In contrast, parents whose youngest children were still exclusively milk-fed showed levels of disgust avoidance similar to those of non-parents, even if they had older children. This unexpected finding suggests that disgust may remain heightened during the earliest stage of infancy, when babies are particularly vulnerable to illness.
The researchers believe this pattern may reflect an evolutionary adaptive response. Heightened disgust during the milk-feeding stage could help reduce disease risk for young infants, while later desensitisation allows parents to care for their children when they are ill.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.70069
when i was studying nursing (i was a middle age dude changing careers) when it came to basic care like changing a diaper i was in the weeds and everyone was like “stupid man never changed a diaper” when in reality it was stupid man stupid because he is childless.
You get used to doing something if you do it often enough…… No way!? Really?
IDK I’m a parent of 2 who has changed many a diaper (with one still in diapers) but the thought of changing an elderly person’s diaper is still pretty disgusting to me
That was my experience. Had a pretty weak stomach when it comes to “bodily fluids” and would regularly gag over things I considered gross. Then I became a dad and I guess this phenomenon kicked in because that stuff just doesn’t affect me any more. (Kiddo is about to turn 18)
I have contamination OCD and a baby (first one). I definitely think that my exposure to poop and germs at such a frequent rate has indeed changed me. I used to wipe down his change station with a sanitized wipe after every change, but I’ve slowly grown out of that. It’s a lot of work, and it’s like the lack of sleep plus need for caregiving almost overrides the need for constant cleaning and checking.
Does this also apply to pets? I was deathly afraid of handling poop before I got mine and now I’m very happy picking up after him. He’s just so cute
It’s not my job, but I’ve done a lot of animal rescue. Things like taking care of strays, handling medical issues, finding homes for animals, finding and retutning lost animals and so on.
I’ve absolutely built up a tolerance to the repulsive because of it.
I’ve had to deal with vomit and feces wriggling with parasitic worms. Then thumbing though the waste in days afterwards to ensure all the parasites were dead.
I once had a cat who I was taking care of until the rescue could get him to the vets shake his head, flinging blood and globs of pus **IN TO MY MOUTH**.
Nothing really bothers me now. I have such a high disgust factor that it weirds people out.
I had an ex who had an ingrown toenail. I would cut iy out, bathe in warm, salted water, and place the toenail out of the way of issue to heal. She was worried I’d be grossed out by her with the infected area, draining the pus and so on. But I never saw reason to.
I’ve been taking care of animals for so long, and built up such a resistance to disgust that things just register in my mind as *medical* and that’s it.
I’m literally gloving up now, so that I can go clean up dog waste, then I’m off to reglove up so I can check the discharge coming out of a stray cats ear I feed to make sure its just wax and not an infection.
I’m going to come back, clean up and eat then.
Next up, “farmers and hunters not bothers by blood and births”.
Really ground breaking stuff here.
So does waiting tables at a BBQ joint.
Once you see a woman blow the bubble of life you realize nothing could possibly be as gross.
You’re welcome science community
I’m a childfree RN. I’m pretty this is just some form of Exposure therapy.
Also works for pets or elder care for family members.
I have quite aversion to vomiting (me or anyone else) and was wondering if that would hinder me if I were to become a parent or if I’d be okay with it since it’s my child
Any job with the elderly, severely handicapped or in daycare does the same.
So that’s what happened to me! I only still feel disgust at behaviours (of strangers, never family or friends) but none at physical things. I’m fine with that. I like it this way.
Dog ownership too. Origins of the phrase “do me a solid”
It’s called exposure therapy, and the specific mechanisms of change are inhibitory learning and habituation. It’s well-researched.
Working in the kitchen and being the guy that would clean anything…
There’s crap that gets stuck places that no one wants to see.
Kids *also* speed up time.
Amazing little creatures.
I still hold my breath while changing poop diapers
Definitely explains why my brother-in-law is always questioning why I wash my hands when I touch his children or their stuff.
Yeah I’ve been a nurse for 13 years and no amount of poop, blood, urine, pus, tissue, or any other disgusting thing gets to me anymore. The other day I was looking at a picture of one of my patients who has a necrotic wound to their leg which has destroyed their bone and tendon while I was eating noodles for lunch and didnt think that was weird until one of the admin staff pointed out how gross that was.
The last time I felt slightly grossed out by something was treating a maggot infested fungating tumour on someone’s neck, but even then it was a momentary “yuck” and then I carried on.
I’m an infant teacher. No liquid or solid that can be ejected from a baby bothers me anymore.
Not surprisint given the number of parents who seem to think their children’s bodily functions and various secretions are an acceptable topic of conversation or that you’d be *delighted* to help them out by changing a diaper. I’ve often wondered if it’s because they became desensitized to the grossness of it and forget that other people especially non parents are probably not on the same wave length.
This is correlation not causation. My brother has two daughters and changed their diapers when they were growing up but his wife does the dishes at their house and he freaks out over anything to do with plumbing.
I have no kids but I worked as a dishwasher when I was younger and spend a lot of time composing. I’ve had to help him out with plumbing issues many times because he gags at anything too disturbing.
So this doesn’t seem to be as much about whether you have kids but whether you’re regularly exposed to nauseating stimulus in your day to day world. In other words, the observation about parenthood is merely a correlation. Parenthood is merely one potential route for tolerance to build up.
Thats not innoculation, thats exposure therapy
Becoming a firefighter paramedic did this for me, so much so that by the time I had my first child even the diabolical baby shits didn’t phase me
So… “people get used to stuff”?
Didn’t work on me at all.
Diapers,upset stomaches etc was pretty sure to send me out projectyle vometing
Neonatologist and father. I’ve seen so much poop. In residency I spent a lot of time getting it out of kids (we are talking essentially shoving a hose that dumps miralax into them until they poop clear), dealing with the bloody poops of kids with UC and Crohns, and changing a lot of diapers. In the NICU I regularly play the game is this a bloody poop or a vitamin / medication colored poop.
So yeah the sight of it doesn’t disgust me, the smell rarely does (worst was a baby who was born in a toilet and had the worst turbo liquid diarrhea poops of any day old baby.)
But there’s still a whole of things that still disgust me, just less so poop.
Just goes to show that what people consider gross really is just learned behavior. You can unlearn it. Which I think is different from actual sanitary behavior. Like, you don’t want to not clean stuff because you don’t get grossed out by bodily fluids and waste, but it’s good to not have it physically sicken you to be around.
I assumed this was true just based on attitudes of people. Its a shame cause I know some people not planning on kids that seem to be growing their disgust response to normal things.
My biggest concern before having a child was changing diapers. A few days in I realized it was the least of my concerns. I have been peed on, pooped on, and vomited on several occasions – and it was not a big deal when it happened.
I can attest that my disgust has been dramatically inoculated after having a child. Now my 5 year old sticks her butt up in the air at you to blow farts like a little farting artillery cannon so the hits keep coming.
Parenting is gross, yes, but parenting’s got nothing on nurses. This study would have been much more appropriate with nurses and imaging techs.
I worked (10,000 egg laying hens)chicken coops where you take old hens out one week, and add new hens the following after its cleaned, and at a slaughter house where I had to cut cow junk regions open for the machine to pull the hide off. When i got older and worked with mentally ill and dying adults, the messes weren’t that bad, but those coworkers were mortified to paralysis.
I wonder how this could apply to people born with uterus after they start menstruation. Could this same logic follow of being exposed (monthly) to blood would lower the threshold to being grossed out by blood?
I think it’s just desensitization
Anyone who has a dog can tell you that picking up poop by hand stops bothering you after a couple days.
This is a good sign cause I always wondered how I would handle my kid vomiting. I can’t stand puke. It always makes me wanna puke too
4 kids for me. Fun tidbit for you folk without kids but thinking about it. At some point your kid will vomit around you and you will try to catch it with your hands. Enjoy your turn.