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Dr. Thomas Berry Brazelton is a pediatrician and author of more than 200 papers and 38 books on child development, many of which are still in print and published in many languages.

His educational background embraced both medicine and psychiatry, leading to the founding of the Child Development Unit in the Children's Hospital, Boston in 1972. This pediatric training and research center remains an important institution for the care of newborns and the development of strategies for coping with parenting issues and has been renamed the Brazelton Institute in honor of its founder.

In the medical world, Brazelton is famed for the development of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). This system is now employed worldwide, both clinically and in research, to assess the health and emotional well-being of newborn infants. This system helps medical professionals in providing childcare but also aids parents wishing to better understand the needs of their child.

In the home, however, Brazelton has helped many families cope with the problems of parenting through his books, New York Times column, videos and the cable TV series "What Every Baby Knows" which first aired in 1984.

His friendly guidance has covered many aspects of parenting, including feeding, toilet training, sleep and discipline. The foundation for his methods is the Touchpoints approach, which concentrates upon building strong family-child relationships and ensuring that parents establish a collaborative rather than prescriptive relationship with their offspring.

His ideas and methods continue to assist families and children across the world, and Brazelton and his institutions continue to offer advice not only to families but to government through his frequent appearances before Senate advisory committees.

Despite the title of this article it should perhaps be stressed that as of 17th April 2007, Brazelton was very much alive and well and continuing to dispense his wisdom the nation. Often described as the natural successor to Dr. Spock, Brazelton's emphasis upon building trust and understanding with children will live on through his publications, his training of fellow professionals and the families who have embraced his methods.

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