Your Amazing Newborn

I'm a pediatrician, and I recommend this book, not only to new parents, but also to health care professionals. This fascinating work is basically an annotated illustrated bibliography to the research in this field. Any professional who wants to know more can take this work as a wonderful, paradigm-shifting and enlightening starting point, and follow the cited works to further work. I do a lot of teaching, and I recommend this book to doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, and to medical, midwifery, and nursing students, and particularly to residents and fellows in pediatrics, OB and family practice--and of course, to new parents. A huge body of research over the past several decades has demonstrated a grand repertoire of innate hardwired newborn capabilities, including a wonderful capability for very young babies to interact with, and respond to, their parents beginning the first hour of life. My reasons for recommending this updated work begin with all the reasons that the parents who have reviewed this book here have already so eloquently stated. Beyond that, let me add: Marshall Klaus is a neonatologist from UCSF, co-editor and author of Klaus and Fanaroff, a solid neonatology textbook, and a careful and very observant researcher and scholar. Phyllis Klaus is a brilliant and thoughtful psychotherapist. They are an amazing team. The book is beautifully illustrated and fully referenced. Much of the work cited are the classic, seminal studies in the field. It should be required introductory reading for every pediatric resident and neonatology fellow on the planet.

This was by far the best book I've read during pregnancy. It's a fast and interesting read with great information and research that both my husband and I found equally exciting and valuable. I can't stop telling people about it. It's the only book I've read that doesn't preach about the wrong and right way to do things, but offers research to show how intelligent and aware newborns are. It is much less about the parents and much more about the babies. I would highly recommend this to anyone expecting a new baby in their family.

I justt loved all the photos in here of newborn faces and behaviors. every baby in this book is two weeks old or less, and it was so interesting to learn aout the skills they are born with.

This is a wonderful book that demonstrates, just as its title indicates, that newborns are truly amazing beings, with far more cognitive abilities than is generally assumed.For example, one of those abilities is the capacity to instinctively know how to reach for his or her mother's breast, typically within 45-90 minutes after birth....there are many photographs, some astounding, especially the ultrasound photos)...I would not have the slightest reservations giving this book as a present to expectant parents or parents of a newborn.This book was both educational and delightful both for my wife and for me.

While other baby books (e.g., What to Expect...) focus on all the things that can go wrong with a baby and all the practical concerns, which are important, this book offers such a wonderfully different perspective: the title sums it up...it's about how amazing newborns are and all they can do at the moment they are born. I read it just before and again just after my newborn came along and the just-after reading made all the difference in the world: made me see not just how important it all was but how amazing this little person was. I wish more people would read this book; I give it to everyone I know who has a baby.