Abraham Bergman, doctor who sought answers to cot death, dies at the age of 91

Dr. Abraham B. Bergman, a pediatrician who was instrumental in passing a federal law to combat sudden infant death syndrome, a once misunderstood loss that caused not only parental heartbreak but also feelings of guilt and guilt, and who left his mark on other lasting public health laws, died on November 10 in Seattle. He was 91.

The cause of his death, on a relative’s boat, was heart disease, his son Ben Bergman said.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Bergman chaired the National Foundation for Sudden Infant Death, a grassroots group that supported parents who had lost children to what was once commonly called cot death. Although SIDS, as the syndrome came to be known, was the leading cause of death in infants under one year old, the cause was unknown. Parents often blamed themselves, marriages failed and in some cases authorities investigated child abuse.

“What we are doing to those parents is a crime,” Dr. Bergman to The New York Times in 1972. “The police are investigating, there is a judicial investigation and the GP often abandons the parents.”

Dr.’s group Bergman tried to destigmatize cot death, support grieving parents and raise money for research. These efforts led to the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Act of 1974, which provided millions of dollars for research.

Dr. Bergman, who called his decades-long advocacy to improve children’s health “political medicine,” was an impassioned witness at hearings on Capitol Hill on a variety of issues. He told heartbreaking anecdotes and chastised lawmakers for their inaction. But he also worked behind the scenes as a de facto lobbyist to move bills. Maintaining ties with two influential U.S. Senators from Washington State, Warren G. Magnuson and Henry M. Jackson, he was extremely successful as a private citizen who influenced legislation.

“Magnuson really trusted Abe, who listened to him and pushed him to do a lot,” said Eric Redman, Mr. Magnuson’s former legislative assistant.

In 1967, Dr. Bergman Mr. Magnuson by taking him to the burn unit of a children’s hospital in Seattle and showing him young patients who had been seriously injured when their clothing caught fire. Before a Senate subcommittee that Mr. Magnuson led, Dr. Bergman lifted a flannel nightgown like the one a two-year-old girl was wearing when it caught fire from a space heater, burning more than 85 percent of her body. “You senators are in a position to save many more lives than doctors,” he said. In response, Congress strengthened and expanded the Flammable Fabrics Act to require more flame-resistant clothing.

In 1970, Dr. Bergman proposed to Mr. Magnuson the idea of ​​the National Health Service Corps, a federal program to pay the student loans of health care providers in exchange for a stint of doctoring in poor communities. Dr. Bergman enlisted medical students to lobby key members of Congress in their home districts. He personally went to West Virginia to pressure Representative Harley Orrin Staggers, whose district was one of the neediest in the country. President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Health Service Corps into law in December 1970, just ten months after Dr. Bergman had suggested it.

Working with Mr. Jackson’s office, Dr. Bergman also helped draft the Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 1976, which expanded healthcare funding for Native Americans, and lobbied for its passage on Capitol Hill.

“Jackson effectively added Abe to his staff for the legislative effort,” Mr. Redman recalled.

Abraham Baer Bergman, better known as Abe, was born in Seattle on May 11, 1932, the son of Fred and Minnie (Hurwitz) Bergman. His father had a left-luggage office and his mother was a housewife.

He graduated from Reed College in 1954 and received his medical degree from Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland in 1958. He was a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in London, where he lived for a while. time.

He began his career at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where he was director of the outpatient clinic for 19 years, and then moved to Harborview Medical Center, where he served as chief of pediatrics from 1983 to 2005. He remained on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine until 2016.

Dr. Bergman’s marriage to Judy Maslin, Ann (Bigelow) Bergman and Suzanne Fiala ended in divorce.

In addition to his son Ben, Dr. Bergman is survived by seven other children: Anna and Matthew Bergman, Sarah Bergman Lewis, Becca Bull and Pavel, Eugeny and Yulia Fiala, who were adopted from orphanages in Russia. He also leaves behind six grandchildren.

When Dr. Bergman began researching cot death, experts had largely dismissed its many suspected causes, including suffocation on bedding, allergy to cow’s milk, and lead poisoning. A theory that Dr. Bergman proposed that babies suffered from a spasm of the vocal cords during sleep that blocked the airways.

At a research conference in Seattle in 1969, the term SIDS was first formally proposed as a diagnosis.

In 1973, Dr. testified. Bergman before Congress, armed with a report on how law enforcement officers, coroners and parents in 158 communities responded when a child died suddenly in a crib. There were discrepancies in the way health authorities treated parents of different races; only half as many black parents as white parents were told their baby had died of SIDS. An Alabama coroner quoted in the report attributed the SIDS death to asphyxiation because “blacks do not know how to care for their children.”

During the hearing, he blasted lawmakers for their inaction: “Maybe it’s the heat or maybe it’s the smog. Government officials here in Washington are always busy, busy, busy with big problems.”

Shortly afterwards, the SIDS Syndrome Act was passed.

Today, the cause of cot death is still a medical mystery, but… the number of deaths has declined sharply since 1990. The reason commonly cited is an increase in public awareness of risk factors. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents put babies to sleep on their backs in their first year and that mothers breastfeed their babies, which lowers the risk of SIDS.

Jerry Grinstein, former Senate aide and later CEO of Delta Air Lines, recalled in an email that Dr. Bergman first approached Commerce Commission staffers about SIDS in the late 1960s, but it took a few years to develop legislation and public support.

Committee members and staff “got the job done,” Mr. Grinstein wrote. “But it was Abe’s inspiration and perseverance to use legislation, supported by compelling stories from fellow professionals, plus hurting parents.”