If the sound of a baby crying gets you red in the face, you're not just imagining things. A new study has found that an infant's cries – particularly those that signal pain – really do trigger a hot flush in adults' faces, perhaps as a way of launching us into action.

Babies' wailing is, in a sense, unbearable on purpose. Without language, it's an infant's best shot at getting the help they need from their caregivers. The vibrations that erupt from a baby in serious distress are quite literally more chaotic than the cries of low-level discomfort.

Cries of pain are formed differently than other sounds a baby makes: they forcefully contract their ribcage, pushing high-pressure bursts of air through their vocal cords to produce variable pitches and disharmonious sounds known to acoustici

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