Blog

It is with sadness that we note the passing of John H. Kennell, M.D. He was professor emeritus of pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

As a doctor and educator, he had immeasurable influence on an untold number of children, parents, families, medical students, therapists and physicians. He helped revolutionize the way families – and especially mothers and babies – are treated during maternity.

He died peacefully on Aug. 27, 2013 at the age of  91.

While Kennell maintained an active pediatric practice, he was perhaps best known for groundbreaking research on mothers and babies, which he conducted with his long-time collaborator Dr. Marshall H. Klaus.

As co-authors of Maternal Infant Bonding in 1976, research by Kennell and Klaus drew a connection between parental bonding and a baby’s survival. “The value of skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the baby during the first 90 minutes after birth was particularly noted, as were the benefits of maintaining a ‘baby friendly’ environment during the first hours and days,” according to a 2005 article in the journal Child Analysis.

The conclusion –“that parents should have close contact with a newborn within minutes of birth in order to form a lasting attachment” (quoted from a Plain Dealer obituary)  ultimately changed the maternity experience for parents and babies in hospitals around the world.

Kennell also advocated for more than 20 years to create the “rooming in” policies that now allow parents to stay with their ill children during extended hospital stays.

While Kennell was not directly involved with Hanna Perkins, he was well-known here and his influence was keenly felt.

His approach to working with babies, children and families was much aligned with that of Hanna Perkins. And anyone who undertook psychoanalytic training here over the years was likely to feel as if they knew him through his book on parental infant bonding, says Joanne Naegele, M.A., L.P.C.C., a member of the Hanna Perkins training faculty.

In 2005, Kennell was honored with the Eleanor M. Hosley Memorial Award, given by Hanna Perkins to select individuals for their “kind, effective consideration of the needs, feelings and rights of children,” according to the Child Analysis article, which concluded, “…he has remained devoted to listening to and learning from the mothers, the fathers, and the babies – including their nonverbal messages – with whom he has worked.”

To read more about John H. Kennell:

• Plain Dealer obituary, Sept. 1, 2013
• Pioneer of Mother-Baby Bonding Research Dies (from Common Health Reform and Reality)
• The Carola Warburg Rothschild Award of the Childbirth Connection
• About the founders of DONA International (Doula Society of North America)