T. Berry Brazelton

Thomas Berry Brazelton (1918 to 2018) was an American pediatrician, author and researcher who changed how clinicians and parents think about newborns. Born in Waco, Texas, he trained at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and at Massachusetts General Hospital and Children's Hospital in Boston, entered private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1950, and added training in child psychiatry because of his interest in child development. In 1972 he founded the Child Development Unit at Children's Hospital in Boston, and he later served as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School. He developed the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale, which describes the behavior of an infant up to two months old across 28 behavioral and 18 reflex items and gives parents a portrait of the baby's strengths and vulnerabilities. He wrote more than two hundred scholarly papers and twenty-four books, including the Touchpoints series, hosted the cable program What Every Baby Knows, and testified before Congress in support of parental and medical leave. He died on 13 March 2018 at the age of 99.