Babywearing has long been established as a safe and traditional way of carrying your child. In indigenous cultures, babywearing is often seen as a “transitional womb”, in which the baby is attuned to the parent’s movements – walking, bending, reaching. Additional benefits of babywearing include:
- Formation of a close bond between parent and baby.
- Being able to be skin-to-skin with the parent allows the baby to hear the parent’s heartbeat. The parent’s steady, rhythmic heartbeat mimics the sounds that the baby hears in the womb, and has been proven by research to calm and quieten down a baby. Research has also proven that preterm babies, when carried, grow at a faster rate than preterm babies who were not carried. This reinforces the fact that a close skin-to-skin bond is beneficial for both the parent and the baby.
- Happier babies!
- Colicky babies and babies suffering from reflux, often benefit the most from babywearing, as it allows them to be close to their parent, and also to be upright, thus preventing further painful regurgitation. Parents with reflux babies would also agree that the baby would prefer to be held upright, as being upright aids the baby’s digestion, particularly when newborn babies have a weak lower esophageal sphicter. Colicky babies also cry less, when held close to the mother’s chest. Babywearing allows the parent to do so with minimal fuss!
- Babywearing is convenient.
- Imagine navigating around a crowded department store during the Christmas season with a pram or a portable car seat! Babywearing allows the parent the use of both his/her hands, thus allowing for hands-free carrying of the baby. Babywearing is convenient, especially when doing your grocery shopping, or even your household chores!
- Promotes baby’s physical development.
- Travelling with the mother, the baby is more in tune with the mother’s movements and actions, compared to being seated in a pram. This stimulation allows the baby to exercise his vestibular system, as he gains increased control over his muscles. In addition, the baby gains awareness on the varied movements that the mother makes in order to accomplish her tasks – bending, picking, reaching, wiping etc. The more he observes, the more knowledge and familiarity he gains on how to perform different physical tasks.
- A secure and confident baby.
- As the baby grows older and becomes more aware of her surroundings, stranger anxiety is often exhibited as an unfamiliar person or environment can make a baby worry or fearful. Being able to hear the mother’s breathing and heartbeat can calm a baby down significantly, and babywearing can help ease the stress of an unfamiliar environment for the baby. This is not achievable with the use of a pram or a travelling basket.
- Kangaroo Care
- Kangaroo care, the practice where the baby is held skin-to-skin with the parent, has been scientifically proven to benefit not just the baby, in terms of bonding and attachment, but also for the parent. For parents, it promotes attachement, improves parental confidence and for mothers, it stimulates breastmilk production and a natural tendency to care for and protect their child. A mother’s oxytocin is also increased through physical contact with the baby, thus lowering the incidence of postpartum depression in the mother.
- Earlier establishment of independence.
- Research has shown that babies who were carried frequently by their caregivers were less likely to be clingy and more likely to be independent earlier. As the baby grows up feeling more secure and confident, they venture out independently and initiate separation, much earlier as compared to babies who were not held frequently.
- Decreased risk of positional plagiocephaly.
- Plagiocephaly, also known as “flat head syndrome”, can occur when the newborn baby is placed in a certain position for long periods of time, especially when their skulls are still soft after the birth. This usually occurs when the baby is resting in the cot, or in a car seat for extended periods of time. Babywearing can mitigate this risk as it often does not require a baby to be resting at the back of her head. Babies can alo be carried as they sleep, thus decreasing the amount of time they are on their backs.
- A wonderful position to be in.
- Babywearing allows the infant to be AT the centre of gravity, but not THE centre of attention. From there, the baby can observe the world and be able to absorb what a daily life looks like. This is not achievable if a baby was to lie back in a pram, lying down in a parent’s arms or lying sideways in a sling, looking towards the ceiling.
- Long-Term Goals.
- Attachment parenting is the philosophy of parenting to form a strong social bond between the parent and child, and in thus creating a sensitive and emotionally-ready child who will foster a child’s development in emotional intelligence (EQ), as well as in intellectual quotient (IQ). Babywearing supports all this and more!
