New Baby and Child Care Edition Brings Lifesaving Nutrition Advice

Baby and Child Care, the classic parenting guide by America’s beloved pediatrician Benjamin Spock, M.D., has helped parents nurture, raise, and understand their children for 65 years. The newly released ninth edition brings nutrition advice that parents need now more than ever.

Childhood obesity has hit record levels, and many children are showing risk factors for type 2 diabetes and heart disease before they finish elementary school. The answer lies in better food choices.

As a young man, Benjamin Spock was a picture of health. Tall, strong, and athletic, he won an Olympic gold medal with the Yale rowing crew in 1924. He graduated at the top of his medical school class at Columbia and specialized in pediatrics, releasing the Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care in 1946. The book revolutionized parenting, encouraging parents to trust their instincts and common sense.

The book’s early editions promoted meat, dairy products, and other less-than-healthful foods, as did virtually all other parenting guides at the time. But later in life, when chronic lung problems, heart problems, and weakness in his legs pushed Dr. Spock to revamp his own diet, his health rebounded. He rewrote his guide for parents, praising the power of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.

“We now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet,’’ Dr. Spock wrote. “Children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products.’’

In 1992, Dr. Spock joined PCRM in calling attention to the links between dairy products and type 1 diabetes, and later supported PCRM’s efforts to revise the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The new, updated edition of Baby and Child Care includes the first digital, searchable e-book version.