PEPPER PIKE -- A MetroHealth Medical Center pediatrician has put a 21st century twist on the 9th edition of the book “Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care.”Dr. Robert Needlman, a Pepper Pike resident, grew up in Chicago, graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s in English literature and earned his doctorate from the Yale School of Medicine. He trained in general pediatrics and developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Boston City Hospital.
Since, he has been the revising author for the 8th and 9th editions of “Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care,” a book translated into 39 different languages with more than 50 million copies sold. “Spock was really one of the fathers of developmental and behavioral pediatrics,” Needlman said. “He was never a pediatrician, but inspiration comes from him. I think it’s a little hidden dream as behavioral pediatricians to write the Dr. Spock book.”
Jumping on the Spock train
Needlman said he went through a bit of a journey to get the opportunity to revise the book. First, he received a call from a former resident of the hospital who he taught, asking if he would be interested in working on drspock. “It took some convincing, but I did it with some colleagues from Case Western Reserve University. We all ended up spending a fair amount of time working on this website. That went on for a year and a half,” he said.
Between the course of that time, Needlman made contact with Spock’s widow Mary Morgan who was working on getting an 8th edition of the book put together. He started working on the revision in 2001 and the 8th edition was released in 2004. This year, the 9th edition will come out with Needlman still as the reviser.
“At that point (in 2001), Spock had been dead for three years and I never met him or got to know him. Our paths crossed in funny ways, but never at the same time,” Needlman said. “It seemed reasonable since I spent a good deal of time from 2000 on, revising information from the book for the website and when it was time to do the revision of the book, there I was. It was still a dream come true and it was terrific.”
Additions and revisions
Needlman said there is a lot of change between the 8th and 9th editions of the book. There was an attempt to streamline it and get it down from 1,000 pages, but a revision to the resource section just made the book longer. Other than the technical issues, content was added and expanded to recognize the lives of 21st century parents and their children. The 9th edition tackles nutrition, moving a few steps closer to advocating vegan eating although it goes against the spirit of Spock, according to Needlman.
“Telling people what to do is not helpful,” he said. “Everybody makes their own decision on what they think is best for them and their kids. There are a couple of issues where I would like to be able to tell people what to do, but I don’t. Spock never did that either because that orientation is, first of all, what makes the book valuable and what is actually helpful for parents.”
Obesity is touched on more in the 9th edition than the 8th. Needlman said the subject continues to be a huge issue and even more than it was in 2004. Luckily, he runs an obesity clinic at MetroHealth in Cleveland, which helped him revise the book and include the section on obesity.
“Very often in families that are plagued with obesity, the options are fairly limited and most of them revolve around eating. One thing I learned about obesity is the same thing we all learn; it’s complicated,” he said. “The information on nutrition and obesity is informed by up-to-date, hands-on, practical experiences I have had studying it and working with families.”
Electronic media
Video games and the Internet are also two items touched on more in the 9th edition. Needlman said one area that is not as up-to-date is about electronic media, which is hard to keep accurate because there’s always something new.
The general principles are clear and they haven’t changed much since the 8th edition, but they may be more elaborate. He touches on the fact children learn best by smelling, tasting and experimenting. A critique he has for electronics is that it restricts children from being more active than passive. There are lots of things children need to experience in the real world that they won’t get from watching a screen.
“Parents are always being told that they are replaceable by slick electronics, but I think that is well in the future and I mentioned that in the book,” he said. “It comes up in the discussion about how kids learn and what parents can do to purport learning for school age and older kids, too. Parents that feel the best about it feel they have control over when and how much. Parents who feel overwhelmed lose sense of control.”
Bullying and nature
Bullying is talked about all the way back to the 7th edition, but it is touched on even more in the 9th edition. Needlman said it’s also a huge issue and it’s something parents need to know about, but it’s something they can not be alone in tackling. He explains it needs to be a partnership between parents, schools and society in general.
Nature was something completely new to the book. Over the course of working on editions eight and nine, Needlman came in contact with many people in environmental health. In previous editions, Spock talked about the role of being outdoors, but the idea of what children would do when they were out was less clear.
Getting the best outcome
Needlman said when parents read the book, they should remember the important decisions they make as parents are both reasonable and based on a true understanding of children and it has to be true for them. That way, when they make a decision on, for example, how to feed a child, they will feel confident they are doing what is right for them.
“With that sort of support from the book, parents should have a good outcome,” he said. “One strength of the book is that in many different ways, it embraces diversity in families and shows children and parents that there is no one size that fits all. The orientation of the book is in contrast to many of the books available to parents these days, particularly now in this moment in history when many of the old certainties seem to be shaken. It’s helpful for parents to have a companion that values diversity for who they are, who their kids are and what solutions work for kids. I hope that comes across in the book.”
The 9th edition will also mark the first time “Dr. Spock Baby and Child Care” will be available for digital purchase.