Dr. Thomas Brewer -- developed diet for pregnant women
Dr. Thomas H. Brewer, an obstetrician famous for "the Brewer Diet" and a researcher who devoted a long career in the Bay Area to promoting lifesaving diet improvements for pregnant women, died on Nov. 22 in Middlebury, Vt. He was 80.
Through a mentor, the young Dr. Brewer uncovered research linking poor nutrition to toxemia, a potentially fatal blood condition affecting pregnant women and their unborn children. Moved by the plight of Southern sharecropper women who lived -- and, in pregnancy, often died -- on a diet of coffee for breakfast, peas for lunch and no dinner, he spent 50 years studying the link between adequate maternal diet and healthy childbirth.
Dr. Brewer discovered the mechanism that triggers toxemia in undernourished women. He worked out that an adequate protein diet could eliminate toxemia and sharply reduce the rate of premature births in high-risk women.
Armed with his research findings, he fought with characteristic single-mindedness to establish new prenatal standards for protein and calorie consumption, said Gail Krebs of Port Jervis, N.Y., Dr. Brewer's ex-wife and co-author with him on several books.
"He was an intense guy, and once he made up his mind, he never wavered from it," Krebs said recently, paraphrasing a comment one of Dr. Brewer's colleagues made after his death.
Born in 1925, Dr. Brewer grew up in Houston and planned to study for the Episcopal ministry. Instead, he joined the Army at 17 during World War II and took part in the invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa, among others, receiving the Purple Heart for wounds and the Bronze Star for valor.
"He saw it all and was very young," Krebs said. "When he came out, he decided he was going to go into medicine instead of the Episcopal ministry. He had a very strong empathy and feeling of responsibility for the people he was caring for."
Dr. Brewer, who taught at UCSF and developed a prenatal nutrition program in Contra Costa County, became an ardent peace activist and was particularly moved by the impact of war on children.
He authored more than 40 journal articles and was the medical consultant on numerous books written with Krebs, including "What Every Pregnant Woman Should Know." This year he had been working with Krebs on an anthology of the critical research papers in his field.
Dr. Brewer's work is to be continued by the Brewer Institute, a privately funded organization that will begin operations in 2006.
Survivors include his children, Eric Brewer of Hyattsville, Md., Laurie Brewer of Capitola (Santa Cruz County), Claire Lohmann of Denver, Daniel Hayes of Sacramento, Bruce Brewer of Oregon City, Ore., Cornelia Brewer of Burlington, Vt., and Thomas Brewer of Portsmouth, N.H.