More than 25 years ago Marshall Klaus and John Kennell (1976) championed a new perspective on the early parent -infant relationship that resulted in a major shift in hospital and medical practices for pregnant, laboring, and parturient women, their infants, and families. Klaus and Kennell emphasized the emotional needs and vulnerabilities of parents and newborn, as well as their capabilities for developing enduring and healthy psychological bonds. They outlined the clinical and institutional stresses and obstacles placed in the way of parent and child and devised recommendations for improved care and support, many of which are now common practice. Such practices include early physical contact between mother and newborn, roomingin, the creation of comfortable, private areas for labor and delivery, and a greater role for and support of the parents of preterm and disabled infants. In Bonding, co-written with Phyllis Klaus, a clinical social worker, Klaus and Kennell outline their current thinking and recommendations for parents and infants, revised in light of subsequent research on their original theory, developmental and clinical research more generally, and their own clinical experience.
The book is divided into nine chapters covering pregnancy, labor and birth, early neonatal capabilities, the immediate postpartum period, infant feeding, the development of the infantcaregiver relationship in the first few weeks of life, the special challenges to the parents of premature birth and birth defects, and attachment and boding in the early years. In each chapter, the authors describe institutional and developmental challenges to be managed; for example, the impact of information about the fetus through sonograms and amniocentesis, various interventions such as oxytocin drip and caesarian section, neonatal capabilities (e.g., finding the nipple and responsiveness to human stimuli), and the even more complex interventions and challenges that may occur in preterm deliveries or when there is a birth defect. For each of these factors and events, the authors emphasize the importance of allowing the parents to plan and to participate in decision making to the fullest extent possible. Throughout, the authors describe the essential ambivalence of each of these experiences for parents -the powerful positive and negative emotions they evoke. They give concrete examples of ways in which medical personnel and family members can support parents through these turbulent events; for example, by allowing parents of hospitalized neonates both private time and private space in which they can learn to take over, that is, "own" the baby and their experience as the primary caregiver. Detailed and specific recommendations regarding labor and delivery, postpartum adjustment, and high-risk births are enumerated at the end of several chapters. In recognition of the unique role that fathers can and often wish to make, specific suggestions for involving the father in the birth and postnatal period are included throughout. For example, the authors