On Becoming a Family

About this book

The passionate attachment between parents and babies, as well as the inevitable anxieties, begins well before birth. Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, whom Time magazine calls "the nation's preeminent baby doctor" shows how this turmoil prepares parents for the arrival of the child and how to survive and enjoy those important early months when a new relationship begins and a new family is born.As the cornerstone of his classic trilogy, which continues with Infants and Mothers and Toddlers and Parents, this revised and up-to-date edition of On Becoming a Family supports parents through pregnancy, birth, and the first few months. Dr. Brazelton examines the great adjustments parents must make in their relationships with each other and with the new baby; the gradual (not instant) process of bonding; the normal competition between parents and between parents and caregivers; and the effects on all this of Caesarean section, premature birth, single parenthood, and a child born with a potential disability. This edition also includes astounding new insight into the abilities of the newborn, and an entirely new chapter on attachment in adoptive families.