Historical Perspectives: Berry Brazelton: Le Magnifique

I was privileged to have worked with Berry Brazelton (Fig) for over 40 years. In 1978, as a new graduate student from Ireland, I first looked over his shoulder in the company of his pediatric fellows, as he used the scale he had just developed—the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS)—to examine a less than 1-day-old female newborn in the old Boston Lying-In Hospital. Even as he examined the baby’s reflexes, I was immediately struck by his—what could only be called gentleness, even tenderness—in the way he both held and spoke to the baby. He called her by her first name. “You are so alert, Sarah. Your mother must be very proud of you.” When he took a red ball out of his kit and moved it slowly from 1 side to the other, the baby began to track the ball and locked on to it, as if she did not want to release it from her gaze. “She can see,” blurted her mother, shaking her head in disbelief. When he began to talk to her in lilting, melodic phrases, Sarah’s face relaxed and her eyes widened and brightened. They were now interacting with each other—in a give-and-take, back-and-forth cyclical rhythm that had all the hallmarks of true conversation.

That babies could see and hear and had a wide repertoire of behavioral endowments at birth was a revelation to me, but Berry Brazelton had just demonstrated that this less than 1-day-old baby also had her own well-defined personalized behavioral style and was already shaping and leaving her mark on the world. She and Berry Brazelton left their mark on me and on all the pediatric fellows who were present on that August day, many years ago.

In this clinical newborn encounter, we …