{"id":192139,"date":"2017-08-25T21:33:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T21:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/dr-marshall-h-klaus-maternity-ward-reformer-dies-at-90\/"},"modified":"2017-08-25T21:33:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T21:33:00","slug":"dr-marshall-h-klaus-maternity-ward-reformer-dies-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/dr-marshall-h-klaus-maternity-ward-reformer-dies-at-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Marshall H. Klaus, Maternity-Ward Reformer, Dies at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hospitals began to give new mothers more private time with their infants, allow fathers into the delivery room and let young children visit their baby siblings in the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are bringing back an essential ingredient of birth,\u201d Dr. Klaus told The New York Times in 1993. \u201cThis is humanizing maternal care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall Klaus on the role of the doula<\/span> Video by Gail Tully<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Klaus and his wife, Phyllis Klaus, were among the founders of DONA International, an organization that certifies helpers who provide emotional and physical support for mothers before, during and immediately after childbirth. The initials stand for Doulas of North America; the word doula is derived from the Greek word for servant-woman.<\/p>\n

Photo<\/span>
Marshall Klaus at his home in Berkeley, Calif., in 2007.<\/span>
\n
\n Credit<\/span>
\n Laura Abada <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Klaus, his wife and Dr. Kendall, who died in 2013<\/a>, said that the presence of a doula shortens labor, reduces the demand for pain relievers, decreases the number of Cesarean births and promotes an early and enduring attachment between mother and child.<\/p>\n

Dr. Klaus and Dr. Kennell advanced their bonding theory in 1972 in The New England Journal of Medicine after exploring the behavior of goats. They noticed that when mother and baby goats were separated immediately after birth, the mother would butt away its offspring and never successfully reunite with it.<\/p>\n

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But their theory proved controversial<\/a>. Some adoptive parents complained that the bonding theory diminished them, and some feminists said it placed blame on the mother if her relationship with the child became troubled later.<\/p>\n

Others questioned the implications of describing the immediate bonding period as \u201ccritical.\u201d Dr. Klaus later said that describing the first hours after birth that way had been a mistake.<\/p>\n

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    <\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s a \u2018sensitive\u2019 period,\u201d he said, amending the language, in an oral history interview<\/a> for the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2000. \u201cCritical means if it doesn\u2019t occur, all is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Moreover, he said, the use of the word \u201csuggested that bonding was like an epoxy glue rather than a slow-acting sticky substance.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cRather,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019d say there is a suggestion that for some mothers additional contact in the first hours and days of life may be helpful, and in some it may have a profound effect on how they care for the baby, especially poor mothers with few social supports.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Marshall Henry Klaus was born on June 6, 1927, in Lakewood, Ohio, near Cleveland, to Dr. Max Henry Klaus and the former Caroline Epstein, a teacher.<\/p>\n

    He was 6 when his father died of sepsis<\/a> after passing a kidney stone and in his teens when his mother died of breast cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    He graduated from Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) and its School of Medicine. While he was in medical school he developed polio<\/a>, which left him with a frail right arm. He would have liked to be an internist or an obstetrician, he said later, but specialized in pediatric pulmonology and neonatal development in part because of his disability.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI picked newborns because I could thump the chest,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a good hand. I can suture with this hand, but I can\u2019t deliver babies easily. But I can take care of little babies, and that\u2019s why I went into pediatrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    His first marriage, to the former Lois Kreger, ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter Laura, he is survived by his second wife, the former Phyllis Stoller; four other children from his first marriage, Susan, David, Alisa and Sarah Klaus; Phyllis Klaus\u2019s children from an earlier marriage, John and Geoffrey Stoller; a brother, Carl Klaus; and five grandchildren.<\/p>\n

    Among the books he wrote with Ms. Klaus were \u201cThe Amazing Newborn: Discovering and Enjoying Your Baby\u2019s Natural Abilities\u201d (1985) and \u201cMothering the Mother: How a Doula Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier, and Healthier Birth\u201d (1993).<\/p>\n

    Dr. Klaus, with Maureen Hack, also made the film \u201cThe Amazing Newborn\u201d (1957), which demonstrates a newborn baby\u2019s responsiveness.<\/p>\n

    Continue reading the main story<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hospitals began to give new mothers more private time with their infants, allow fathers into the delivery room and let young children visit their baby siblings in the hospital. \u201cWe are bringing back an essential ingredient of birth,\u201d Dr. Klaus told The New York Times in 1993. \u201cThis is humanizing maternal care.\u201d Marshall Klaus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}