Why Babywearing is Logical and Scientific

The other day I was struck by what I found to be an odd sight.  I was parked at my older kids' school letting baby doze a few more minutes while we sat in the car just before school dismissal. I saw the woman beside me get out of her car, go around to the trunk, lift out a heavy-looking stroller and open it up.  She then wheeled it over to the back seat, locked the wheels, and muscled an infant bucket-style car seat out of the car, clicked it into the stroller, unlocked the wheels and pushed her very-much awake baby 50 ft into the school building.  5 minutes later she emerged with a young lad at her side, pushing the baby in the stroller back to the car to undo all the effort she'd just exerted to get baby back into the car.  "How inconvenient," I thought quietly to myself.

Meanwhile, my 5 month old awoke as he usually does after we sit in the parked car for a bit.  Still wearing the baby sling I had put on to carry him out to the car, I got out, went around back, got baby out of carseat, popped him back into the sling and went into the school with ease.  Not only did it take less than a minute, it didn't require hoisting large heavy objects out of two different places in my vehicle, or making sure wheels were locked or that things had clicked into place safely.  Moreover when I got to the door, I was able to hold it for someone coming out instead of hoping to have someone hold the door for me or struggle to get a stroller inside myself.  Plus, I had two hands available to hold each of my daughters' hands with as we made our way through the parking lot back out to the car.

If you were a baby, would you rather be strapped in a lightly padded hard plastic bucket with a nice view of people's kneecaps, or to be scooped up in your mom's cuddly arms and placed in a soft carrier attached to her warm body and enjoy a bird's eye view of all the faces in the school?  When I entered my daughters' classroom, the kids' faces met eye-to-eye with his and they smiled and "awwwed" at him.  He smiled back--it was such a sweet, engaging experience.

It is well-established in mainstream medicine that "kangaroo care" has important benefits for newborn development--the newborn gains weight better, regulates his body temperature easier, has less stress and improved cognitive development just to name a few.  All this from human contact!  But there's no reason to think these benefits abruptly end after the newborn period.  Studies of other primates have shown how important holding and carrying is to the well-being of their offspring.  There is reason to believe in the long-term benefits of human contact to human offspring as well (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=infant-touch). Moreover, there are benefits to the mother, too, such as reducing postpartum depression and anxiety (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091302207000179 ). 

Finally, besides convenience, infant developmental benefits, promoting bonding, and maternal postpartum benefits, two other things come to mind.  One, facilitation of breastfeeding.  Yesterday when I was grocery shopping, I had my baby on my hip in the sling when he started fussing.  I knew he wanted to nurse, so I just repositioned him in the sling, latched him on and kept shopping.  Not only was this easier than if I had had to get him out of a seat, stop shopping, and find a place to sit down to nurse him, it was also quite discreet.  No one would have been able to see what he was doing in the sling; he probably just appeared to be sleeping.  Not that I think women should *have* to be discreet--believe me, I've had times when my nursling wanted to just pop off every 30 seconds to look at the world around him/her and could have cared less if my breast was exposed in the process.  Sometimes it's tough to be discreet with a newborn who's still learning proper latch, too.  Plus, I think our society would benefit from breastfeeding being seen as normal not indecent.  However, I tend to prefer to be discreet and I feel more confident in public if I am nursing my baby in a sling because it allows for discretion.  Second thing about babywearing is that it is cheaper!  A good baby carrier usually costs under $100 and can often be used in different positions as baby grows into a toddler.  I have gotten years of use out of my slings.  And in the meantime, I never had to purchase those bucket car seats that babies so quickly grow out of, along with the "travel system" stroller to boot.  Instead, I invested in a good Britax convertible car seat that saw my daughters through til kindergarten.  (Unfortunately I had gotten rid of this car seat before I had my son, but thankfully some awesome relatives replaced it and got us one for each vehicle).

Plus, what could be more natural than carrying  baby next to your body?  What would primitive humans have done?  What seems more in line with our evolutionary expectations: plastic and wheels or arms and simple extensions of them?