Help HUG Your Baby celebrate, and thank, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton on his 100th Birthday!

Twenty years ago I drank a gin and tonic on my back porch with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton. He was visiting his son at UNC and asked me for a last-minute visit to learn more about my Touchpoints work at SAS Health Care Center in Cary, NC. Several years later he called to congratulate me on my newly released HUG Your Baby DVD. "You did what I always wanted to do," he said. "You made the behaviors of babies accessible to parents!"

This famous pediatrician and Harvard professor reshaped the view of infants and children around the world--and changed my life forever. Every day I enter an exam room or living room to see a new parent, I practice what he taught me: to SEE, and to SHARE, a baby's behavior with her parents.

Many of you know of Dr. Brazelton's primary contributions: the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) and Touchpoints. I was certified in both and spent decades "translating" them for primary care and lactation patients, and birth and parenting professionals, both in North Carolina and in 20 countries around the world.

The NBAS, used mostly as a research tool, looks ever so closely at an infant by evaluating 28 behaviors (on a 9-point scale) and 20 other neurological items (on a 4-point scale). This scale (highlighted in my HUG Strategies online course) has been used to illuminate the impact on a newborn, among other issues, of smoking during pregnancy, of newborn jaundice, and of skin-to-skin care. It also identifies challenging traits in a baby (such as frequent state changes, high activity level, or low interactive abilities) that can interfere with the developing parent-child relationship.

Dr. Brazelton's Touchpoints work (highlighted in my Roadmap to Breastfeeding Success online course) taught me how a surge in a baby's development can temporarily disorganize that baby's eating, sleeping, and/or general disposition. Parents who do not understand or anticipate such a change in behavior can feel more confused and less close to their baby, and may add formula or give up breastfeeding altogether.

We have LOTS to be thankful for as Dr. Brazelton turns 100! Join me in Boston if you can on April 23, 2018, to celebrate his life and achievements with hundreds of his fans! Click HERE for more info about the birthday gathering.

If you are unable to attend, please email me (jan@hugyourbaby.org) a short written tribute to Dr. B., and I will create a HUG Your Baby "thank you" gift to pass on to him.