Lilly Dubowitz

Neurologist acclaimed for revolutionary neonatal research work

WI T H HE R h u s - band Victor, Lilly Dubowitz, who has died aged 85, was celebrated as one of a husband and wife team whose neonatal discoveries helped revolutionise the way newborn babies are assessed in international research. The couple developed two new clinical tests: one, in 1970 determined gestational age in a newborn, the other involved the systematic neurological examination of the newborn.

The gestational age test distinguished small babies who were mature but malnourished, from naturally small premature babies. The pioneering Dubowitz tests won international recognition and have been used by generations of neonatologists, paediatric neurologists and clinicians, using the term “Dubowitzing the baby”.

Lilly Sebok was born in Budapest, the daughter of Jewish textile engineer Julius Sebok and his wife Hedwig. Julius was sent to a labour camp by the Nazis and died shortly after release. Lilly and her mother survived the Second World War in hiding, helped by false papers issued by the Swedish Embassy. In 1948 she matriculated in Budapest before emigrating with her mother to Australia, joning family from Vienna. She studied medicine part time at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1956, followed by post-graduate training in London in endocrinology at Hammersmith Hospital in 1958.

She married the academic Victor Dubowitz in 1960, moved to Sheffield and worked as a senior registrar in paediatrics. With four small children she became drawn to infant development and received a doctorate in medicine from Sheffield University in 1973.

Moving to London in 1972 she pioneered the use of cranial ultrasound imaging in newborns at Hammersmith Hospital and in the mid-80s helped pioneer magnetic resonance imaging to assess the newborn brain.

She retired in 1995 but spent 20 years researching a long-lost architect uncle Stefan Sebok, arrested by the KGB on spying charges after Germany invaded Russia. He died in a Soviet prison. She published her research in a book, Search of a Forgotten Architect.

She is survived by Victor and their sons David, Michael, Gerald and Daniel and 10 grandchildren. GLORIA TESSLER Lilly Dubowitz was born on March 20, 1930. she died on March 14.