In Scent of a Woman the blind character played by Al Pacino was able to tell all about a woman based on her scent. It seems moms can do the same thing – sort of.
Australian researchers have found that mothers report the odor of their own baby's soiled diapers as “less disgusting” when compared to the scats of others. The study reported in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior theorizes that this lack of disgust at our own kid’s diapers confers some sort of evolutionary advantage – in other words the fact that we’re not so turned off by our own kids allows us to nurture them and propagate the species.
Interesting side note: At birth the gut is sterile. Over the first several weeks of life the gut is colonized with millions of bacteria. As it turns out, the bacteria that colonize the colon come from mom and dad. So stool characteristics often match that of the family a baby is born into. Perhaps were less turned off to things we’re accustomed to.
This is the stuff that pediatric gastroenterologists find when they surf.