Healthy Babies Are Happy Babies: A Complete Handbook for Modern Mothers was a popular childcare manual by American pediatrician
Josephine Kenyon first published by
Little, Brown and Company in 1934.[1][2][3]
Background
The book belonged to a genre of childcare manuals pioneered by
Luther Emmett Holt in 1894 with The Care and Feeding of Children. The book's popularity reflected Kenyon's appeal and perceived authority as both a mother and a physician. Over the course of its five revisions (the final two co-authored with her daughter Ruth Kenyon Russell) her advice moved from emphasizing rigid schedules to encouraging "on-demand" scheduling based on the child.[4] The child's healthy emotional development was emphasized, as was the importance of the pre- and postnatal health of the mother.[4][5][6]
Reception
Kenyon's book was very popular,[7] undergoing nineteen printings in the United States and five translations abroad.[8] The book was widely praised for its practical advice and appeal to both mothers and physicians. Hazel Corbin, general director of the Maternity Center Association, enthusiastically endorsed the book, telling new mothers that "the soundest advice I can give you on baby care is to get a copy of that book."[9]
References
^Zabriskie, Louise; N, R. (March 1935). "Healthy Babies Are Happy Babies". The American Journal of Nursing. 35 (3): 299.
doi:
10.2307/3412095.
JSTOR3412095.
^Kenyon, Josephine Hemenway (January 1940). "Healthy Babies Are Happy Babies". The American Journal of Nursing. 40 (1): 110.
doi:
10.1097/00000446-194001000-00046.
^Kenyon, Josephine H.; Russell, Ruth K. (February 1950). "Healthy Babies Are Happy Babies". The American Journal of Nursing. 50 (2): 46.
doi:
10.1097/00000446-195002000-00069.
^Groves, Ernest R. (1942). "Review of Healthy Babies are Happy Babies.; You Too Can Have a Baby.; Feeding Our Old Fashioned Children.; In Defense of Children.; In Defense of Mothers.; The Attractive Child.; Child Psychology.; Three Hundred Gifted Children.; The Measurement of Intelligence of Infants and Young Children.; Your Child Meets the World Outside.; Schizophrenia in Childhood.; School Health Services.; Children in a World of Conflict.; Everyone's Children, Nobody's Child: A Judge Looks at Underprivileged Children in the United States". Social Forces. 21 (1): 116–117.
doi:
10.2307/2570449.
JSTOR2570449.
^Wile, Ira S. (April 1943). "Review of Healthy babies are happy babies: A complete handbook for modern mothers". American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 13 (2): 375.
doi:
10.1037/h0097422.