Most Blue Babies at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Perhaps the most severe congenital defect that has been in the limelight since the 1940's is the tetralogy of Fallot, a combination of four heart defects that is responsible for most blue babies. In 1945, Alfred Blalock of Baltimore, with the advice and help of Helen Taussig, introduced the first operation to enable blue babies to survive. The following year, Willis J. Potts of Chicago introduced a different surgical technique to achieve the same end, but it was not until the advent of open-heart surgery in the 1950's that it was possible for this complicated anomaly to be completely corrected.

Babies too young for the high-chair treatment are difficult to photograph, but there are ways of solving the posing problem. Very young babies can't sit up without support because their weak little backs let them hunch forward like frogs and it might seem logical to shoot them lying down. When, babies are photographed this way, however, their eyes have a strained, unnatural look as they peer up to see what the fuss is all about.

Escalona (29, 1945) reported examples of the influence of the adult on feeding disturbances in babies from ten days to twenty-four months in age. Babies refused tomato juice and orange juice when it was offered them by adults who showed dislike for the juice, or adults who were disliked by the babies. Babies commonly refused solid food when it was first presented. Refusals of solid food were less intense if the infant was fed by a fairly relaxed person, if he was fed slowly, if his attention was directed to each approaching spoonful and he was allowed to touch it, if he was well supported in an upright sitting position, and if the person feeding talked to him in a quiet and encouraging manner. [29, pp. 78-79, 1945]