Dr. Ron Barr
Dr. Ron Barr is working to unravel the complex and mystifying experience of being a newborn.  The Canada Research Chair in Community Child Health Research believes that a newborn’s earliest days can influence health, learning and behavior throughout life.

A key facet of his work is looking at the effects of nutrition and care giving on infant development.  One area of study involves memory and learning ability in newborns. In first-ever studies, Dr. Barr and his team have shown that newborns given glucose remember for longer periods than those only given water.   In current studies he is looking at how aspects of familiarity influence memory – for example, whether an infant remembers a word longer if it’s said by the mother rather than by a stranger.  He is also studying the length of time that babies remember, and the effect of feeding more frequently.

Dr. Barr is also an expert on prevention of shaken baby syndrome, and is a pioneer in research on the intense crying bouts babies can have during the first three months of life – a period he has termed the Period of PURPLE Crying. Dr. Barr’s work shows that colicky crying patterns are behaviourally normal, both across cultures and even in most mammalian species, and only the amounts or intensity of crying seems to differ from infant to infant. Dr. Barr’s work shows that often neither pain nor allergic reactions appear to be causes, and that infant care giving patterns—holding, feeding, and nurturing practices as well as consistency of caregiver response—are better predictors of the duration of periods of crying and fussing. He has developed an intervention program to educate parents about the Period of PURPLE Crying, with the goal of reducing the number of incidents of shaken baby syndrome.

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Last updated: 03/11/2010