Dr. Herbert Ratner, 90, a Oak Park physician and family-life advocate, died Dec. 6 while visiting his daughter in Cleveland.
Dr. Ratner, a native of New York City, served from 1949 to 1974 as the director of public health in Oak Park and was the longtime editor of Child and Family magazine.
A pioneer in the movement to restore breast feeding as a recognized norm of infant nutrition, Dr. Ratner also was a senior medical adviser to the La Leche League from its inception and for more than 40 years. He also was an early advocate of natural childbirth.
In a 1962 article in the The Center Magazine, Dr. Ratner summed up his estimation of the health of Americans this way:
“America is the most over-medicated, most over-operated, and most over-inoculated country in the world. . . . We are flabby and overweight . . . We can’t sleep; we can’t get going when we are awake.”
A longtime activist in the anti-abortion movement, Dr. Ratner received the Cardinal Wright Award from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, a conservative church group, in 1985 for his contributions to medicine and moral values.
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The award, named for the late Cardinal John Wright, a Vatican-based American, is given annually to a person who embodies the fellowship’s goal of integrating learning and religious faith. Dr. Ratner also was a consultant to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on the Family.
When he accepted the award, Dr. Ratner said he dedicated his career to promoting traditional family values and to the proposition that “children are a gift of nature and a blessing from God.”
Dr. Ratner is survived by three daughters, Helen Dietz, Mary Tim Baggott and Anne McNamara; a foster daughter, Dominga Sanchez; and 13 grandchildren.
A memorial mass is being planned for January.