10 Little-Known Benefits Of Baby Backpack Carriers
America is a society in love with – and dependant on – its baby backpack carriers. And no wonder. Few parents will pass up the opportunity to tackle a busy day with both hands free and still maintaining physical contact with their happy, cozy baby. Babies love and need to be held and baby backpack carriers make that easier to do in more situations than ever before. But besides the obvious plusses, here are 10 important benefits for both babies and parents that you may not be aware of:
- Baby backpack carriers supply the sensations of pressure, activity, contentment, warmth, safety, and auditory stimulation that are key to the development of motor control and muscle activity
- The use of baby-carriers decreases stress hormone levels and boosts adrenal circulation that is a key to babies’ alertness
- Transporting children in baby carriers quickens the development of what scientists refer to as proprioception. In other words, babies tend to develop body control allowing them to sit up on their own and walk earlier
- Frequent carrying, promoted by baby backpack carriers, is particularly beneficial to babies born prematurely. It has been shown to lower both mortality and morbidity rates
- Frequent baby carrying correlates with less frequent colic
- Research has shown children whose parents used baby backpack carriers live more connected lives as adults
- Babies engage in increased periods of contented sleep when in baby backpack carriers, which often act as natural tranquilizers
- Adults whose parents relied on baby backpack carriers tend to have better agility, balance, and coordination
- Some parents whose upbringing did not include adequate parental physical contact tend to be uncomfortable with closeness and touching with their own children. Baby backpack carriers address this problem beautifully by integrating closeness into everyday activities. Intimacy becomes a natural part of everyday life even for a parent who finds touching somewhat awkward
“Strange Situation” Shows Baby Carrier Babies are More Secure
Sometime in the middle of the last century, a researcher named Mary Ainsworth decided to study why, although most mothers and infants bonded comfortably and securely, some relationships were characterized by tension and even confusion. In order to find out why, Ainsworth developed a test considered by many to be one of the most important in the history of child developmental psychology. She called it the “Strange Situation.”
What Ainsworth found through her groundbreaking testing method indicated that the way mothers and infants interacted was related to how responsive mothers were to the needs of the child. The amount of closeness between mother and child, such as when a child is carried frequently in a baby carrier, for a modern example, largely determined the quality of bonding in the relationship.
Strange Situation, Normal Reactions
The Strange Situation Ainsworth developed measured variations of babies’ reactions when briefly separated from, and then reunited with their mothers. The experiment begins when a year-old infant is placed in an unfamiliar (strange) room containing toys. The mother and child are at first alone in the room. Shortly, a series of separations and reunions are initiated. The mother leaves the baby alone for a few minutes and researchers make careful observations of how the child reacts to mother’s return.
Children’s’ reactions varied widely. Most eagerly greet their mother upon her return, however, some seem anxious or resistant and some seemed not even to notice. Based on these observations, researchers rate the quality of mother and child attachment.
Baby Carriers Foster Healthy Attachment
Some 40 years after the introduction of the Strange Situation, researchers at Columbia University devised a study to determine what effect greater physical contact between baby and parent, such as that occurring with baby carrier use, had on attachment. Their working hypothesis was that greater physical child-parent contact would result in a more secure relationship and increased parental responsiveness.
The study was designed to employ a soft baby carrier to increase physical contact between parent and child and then use Ainsworth’s Strange Situation to measure the effects, if any. Just as researchers suspected, the study results indicated that there is a direct positive relationship between the early use of a soft baby carrier and greater quality of attachment and security in the parent-child relationship.