All of you would have heard of HCG and a host of hormones that are present during the tenure of pregnancy. This would help to maintain your body to prepare your body for pregnancy and does prepare the mother for child birth. There are some other hormones which do prepare a baby for both pregnancy andnon-pregnancy functions.
Oxytocin
This is the hormone of love and social bonding. This hormone has a lot of important roles to play during the time of childbirth and in the first year once the baby happens to be born. This hormone is present during the period of pregnancy and the third trimester of pregnancy. It does go on to predict the bonding behaviour of the mother with their babies. When you are in the starting phase of labour, the uterus contraction does take due to the rising levels of this hormone. Once you are in the last trimester of pregnancy the function of the hormone would be to keep the uterus contracting, and in the process it does go on to close off the blood vessels that were attached to it. At this point of time the uterus does go on to shrink back to the normal size. If the hormone levels are high in both the mother and the baby it does encourage mutual attachment and at the same time contributes to let down reflex. It does encourage the breast glands to produce more milk.
Relaxin
This would point to the fact that the body begins to loosen up. Now the question that you need to figure out when does relaxin peak during pregnancy. This hormone is present during the course of pregnancy but at a much lower level. The moment you become pregnant the levels of this hormone will peak and it when does relaxin peak in pregnancy. You can say that it would be in the first trimester of pregnancy. Since the uterus is known to contract it does prevent chances of an early delivery as well. when there is an unwanted impact of this hormone it tends to loosen the non pregnancy related symptoms in the form of ankles, arms etc.
Prolactin
Here it would point to the milk production hormone. At this point of time the milk producing hormones tends to increase 10 to 20 times during pregnancy and this would go on to increase milk production. In short it can confer the fact that it does breast milk for lactation. Once the baby is born the levels of this hormone increase by leaps and bounds. You can say that the milk production does start as well. To ensure that the levels of this hormone is maintained and this would mean the production in relation to breast milk. You would need to pump or breastfeed. All of these activities would go on to stimulate the levels of prolactin and here the milk glands are encouraged to produce more and more milk.