Your Amazing Newborn

Marshall Klaus, a neonatologist, and Phyllis Klaus, a psychotherapist (coauthors of Bonding and Mothering the Mother), join efforts again to create an insightful book about the newborn. Incorporating information from an earlier collaboration (The Amazing Newborn, 1985), this newest presents the latest research on how babies behave in the first weeks of life. Notably, the Klauses describe new studies--with more than 100 remarkable photographs--indicating the newborn's abilities to reach and, in the right circumstances, to crawl to the mother's breast and begin to nurse without help. Also described are the six states of the newborn's consciousness: quiet alert, active alert, crying, drowsy, quiet sleep and active sleep. The authors underline the importance of maintaining the sanctity of the first moment of life (they warn against loud noise, and suggest that immediate washing after birth removes important chemical signals between infant and mother). A thoughtful chapter on adoption discusses how infants and adoptive parents bond. A wonderful primer for new parents, this attractive volume pays homage to the ""mysterious, shifting world of the infant,"" explaining how and why babies behave the way they do. Author tour. (Oct.)