Kendrick and Keverne discovered that mimicking the natural stimulation of giving birth triggered ewes to bond with a strange lamb, whether or not they’d bonded with their own and whether or not they had actually given birth at all. Birth could now be dissociated from mother-infant bonding: it’s the stimulation of the vagina and cervix, and the release of oxytocin such stimulation causes, that touches off the bonding process.
