The moving story of one doctor"s work with struggling newborns

Myriam Szejer speaks to newborns. For the past eleven years, in the maternity ward of a French hospital, Dr. Szejer has been conducting her practice with considerable success and acclaim. Called in by hospital staff when a baby or its parents are suffering, she uses the psychoanalytic

techniques of careful listening and talking to reach failure-to-thrive and other suffering newborns and reverse their conditions.

The Words to Be Born is the story of her revolutionary work. Szejer believes babies need words as much as they need nourishment to thrive. By "words," she means that infants need to be talked to about the specific situations and

histories in which they are thrown. They need to hear about their mothers, their fathers, their siblings, and their caretakers. Problematic aspects of their histories (such as the death of a twin sibling or the death of a baby before

them) need to be spoken about out loud—in the presence of the mothers and fathers, if at all possible. Such speech helps everyone—newborn and parents—to place themselves in the altered world created by the baby"s birth.

Without this intervention, physical symptoms and illness may arise.

The Words to Be Born is the first book to show how the "talking cure" can help suffering infants and their parents. Groundbreaking and brilliant, the book should find a welcome audience among parents, psychologists, doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel. In a world where medical technologies and drug interventions reign supreme, The Words to Be Born offers a passionate, moving exploration of a more humane route for restoring health.

Myriam Szejer, M.D., is a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and also president of the organization La Cause des Bébés (In the Interests of the Baby). She lives in Paris, France.

Dr. Szejer uses a revolutionary approach to restoring the health of failure-to-thrive infants: the psychoanalytic techniques of carefully listening and talking to suffering newborns about their mothers, fathers, and problematic histories (i.e. the death of a twin).

Myriam Szejer, M.D., speaks to newborns. For the past eleven years, in the maternity ward of a French hospital, Dr. Szejer has been conducting her practice with considerable success and acclaim. Called in by hospital staff when a baby or its parents are suffering, she uses the psychoanalytic techniques of careful listening and talking to reach failure-to-thrive and other suffering newborns and reverse their conditions. The Words to Be Born is the first book to show how the "talking cure" can help suffering infants and their parents. Ground-breaking and brilliant, the book should find a welcome audience among parents, psychologists, doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel. In a world where medical technologies and drug interventions reign supreme, The Words to Be Born offers a passionate, moving exploration of a more humane route for restoring health.

The interests of the baby — A child is born at least twice — Speech, language, and memory in the newborn — Doing psychoanalysis on a maternity war — From birth to life's limbo: a closer look at baby blues — Confidential childbirth: the child given up at birth.