Dr. Spock's Child-Care Book Has Come A Long Way For Babies

Your parents and perhaps their parents had a well-thumbed copy of Dr. Benjamin Spock's "Baby and Child Care" on their bookshelf.

And if you're raising kids today, you probably have the fourth or fifth edition on your shelf, too.

Through the years more than 40 million copies of what is now called "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care" have been sold worldwide, making it the second-best-selling book of all time behind the Bible. It's been translated into 39 languages.

So it will be no surprise if the sixth edition of the paperback, arriving in bookstores Friday, is a strong seller.

Updated for the '90s, the new $6.99 edition includes information on everything from "day-care shots" to how to talk with your children about AIDS.

Dr. Michael Rothenberg, retired Children's Hospital and Medical Center pediatrician and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, co-wrote the fifth edition of the book in 1986. He also wrote and reorganized most of the updated material in the new edition. But he didn't do it alone.

"Dr. Spock read every word of this manuscript," he says of the man who was his professor in the mid-1950s at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "Ben's 88, but all his marbles are still there. What he had to add was choice and wonderfully useful."

The new edition also was reviewed by local pediatricians Dr. Kathy Mikesell and Dr. Howard Uman, and nurse-practitioner and parent educator Jacqueline S. Delecki. Molly Pessl, a nurse-lactation specialist from Bellevue, consulted on the extensively rewritten chapter on breast-feeding. And the new chapter on preventing injuries was written with help from Dr. Frederick Rivara and his staff at Harborview Hospital's Injury Prevention and Research Center.

The new edition seems better organized, which should make it easier to use. Rothenberg says every chapter was reworked, some things were consolidated, and new information was added.

"So much has changed in the world since the mid-'80s; think about it," said Rothenberg. "We never mentioned AIDS in the last edition; it wasn't a children's disease then. Homosexuality wasn't in the book. And there is much new medically that we've added."

The revision took almost three years to complete. Now Rothenberg has begun collecting information for the seventh edition, which he expects will come out sometime before the year 2000. "We haven't set a firm date yet," he says. "My contract with Dr. Spock was for three books. When we have enough new information, then we'll begin again."

Here are some highlights from the new book:

Sexuality: This section helps parents talk with their children about AIDS, safe sex, contraception, homosexuality and masturbation.

Immunizations: There are three new vaccines. The Haemophilus influenzae type B (HIB) vaccine, the so-called day-care shot, is targeted at the many bacterial diseases very young children pick up. A chicken pox vaccine is expected on the market soon. And shots for infectious hepatitis B are expected to become routine for infants soon.

Injury prevention: Car seats, drownings, burns and many more of the day-to-day risks are covered with advice that by being aware and "reasonably vigilant," a parent can do much to protect a child. The book urges that infant walkers be outlawed because of deaths and serious injuries.

Sunbathing: "No recreational tanning at all," recommend the doctors. Number 15 sunblock should be used routinely to prevent skin cancer at all ages. "That's a toughie," says Rothenberg, "but malignant melanoma is almost 100 percent fatal, and today we know it clearly correlates with too much sun."

Headaches: "Kids get them, too, but we never did a whole section on them before."

Choking and CPR: New chapters with well-illustrated how-tos.

Other new or expanded topics: divorce, custody and single parenting, blended families, the roles of grandparents after divorce, open adoption, whining, latch-key children, nutrition, the dangers of passive smoking, quality time, scoliosis, teen alcohol and drug abuse, and more.

The book still looks and works like past editions. Material can be used as quick reference for a 2 a.m. earache or as a textbook resource for more in-depth understanding of most aspects of parenting and childhood.