‘Don’t let them face the world too early’

ST220707: Mauve family (centre), Jessica holding her baby Antoinaniwa, husband Anton,granny Geraldine and Amelia in pram. About 38 000 people participated at the 702 Walk the talk in Johannesburg.The 8km walk which started at 9:30, gives families the opportunity to enjoy the city on foot and to celelebrate together as communities and to promote health and wellness. Picture: Bonile Bam Picture: Bonile Bam

ST220707: Mauve family (centre), Jessica holding her baby Antoinaniwa, husband Anton,granny Geraldine and Amelia in pram. About 38 000 people participated at the 702 Walk the talk in Johannesburg.The 8km walk which started at 9:30, gives families the opportunity to enjoy the city on foot and to celelebrate together as communities and to promote health and wellness. Picture: Bonile Bam Picture: Bonile Bam

Published Aug 23, 2011

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Daily mail

London

MOTHERS who carry their babies facing forwards are cruel and selfish, according to a leading child health expert.

She said the same accusations could be applied to those who take babies out in prams that face away from the parent.

Cathrine Fowler, a professor of child and family health nursing, claimed that youngsters are frightened if they are carried in a sling or pushed in a pram looking away from their parents.

“Imagine if you were strapped to someone’s chest with your legs and arms flailing, heading with no control into a busy shopping centre – it would be terrifying,” she said.

“Outward-facing baby carriers and prams give babies a bombardment of stimulus, creating a very stressful situation. In not considering our baby’s perspective, we are inadvertently quite cruel to children.”

Fowler’s comments applied not only to newborns but also children of up to a year old.

But they have stirred up controversy, with critics insisting that babies get bored if they face their mother all the time.

They point out that while Fowler’s principle might apply to newborns, it is not so true for babies older than three months.

Midwife Robin Barker, the author of a book called Baby Love, said that as long as babies are loved and fed, the direction they face while on a pram is irrelevant. “Parents have enough to worry and feel guilty about without considering which way they push their child in a stroller,” she said.

“I don’t think there is an issue with letting children experience the world before they are 12 months old.”

Prams that face “backwards”, so that the child is facing the mother, can cost up to 10 times more than outward facing models, she said.

The comments from Fowler, who works at Sydney’s University of Technology, are backed by a 2008 study that found that babies suffer if they cannot see their parents while in a pram.

In the research by the University of Dundee, academics found that prams that face forwards may stunt children’s development and turn them into anxious adults. Children found it difficult to get their parents’ attention and were spoken to rarely. Infants suffer more stress and sometimes even “trauma”, the study said.

In contrast, children in parent-facing prams were more likely to laugh, listen to their mothers talking and to sleep – indicating lower stress levels. – Daily Mail

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