Why Wear Your Baby

Here's some interesting data about babywearing:

Babywearing facilitates bonding between baby and parent:

- Stimulates the production of the hormone prolactin in the mother
- Provides fathers with a means of nurturing that simulates the closeness of the womb
- Enables caregivers to be acutely responsive and aware of baby's cues and signals, increases maternal sensitivity, and heightens a parent's perceptions of a child's needs
- Encourages touch and physical intimacy, which provides relaxation for both parent and child by lowering the level of stress hormones and adrenalin circulating in the blood stream
- Can help reduce the severity of postpartum depression in mothers who have had negative or endocrine-disrupting (epidurals and/or IV pitocin) birth/delivery experiences, and can help stabilize new mother emotions

Babywearing enriches developmental opportunities for baby:

- Helps the baby to maintain equilibrium and exposes the baby to movement in all three directions (side to side, up and down, forward and back), which is essential to proprioception (body awareness)
- Vertical position or semi-vertical position builds muscle strength, control, and coordination
- Provides the natural rhythm of movement and tactile stimulation that small babies need for proper neurological development
- Stimulates optimal development of the cerebellum of the brain, the only part of the brain that continually increases in cells as the baby gets older
- Allows the baby both to observe and be at the center of activity, rather than being the center of attention, which is a healthy atmosphere for development of empathy, affection and a healthy sense of self
- Encourages the development of solid emotional security by facilitating bonding between parent and baby
- Provides the elements of pressure, motion, pleasure, warmth, security, sound that are essential to the development of the vestibular nervous system
- Stimulates the tactile receptors in the skin, developing muscle tone, increases cardiac output which increases circulation, promotes respiration, and aids in digestion

Other benefits:

- A substantially more ergonomic choice than hauling a car seat carrier, a carrier distributes weight evenly from parent's shoulders to hips and aligns baby's center of gravity as close to parent's body
- Holds baby securely leaving the parent's hands free to work and play
- Develops the back muscles necessary to carry the baby
Studies show that babies who are carried or worn:
- Cry and fuss less and smile more
- Initiate separation and become more emotionally self-reliant more quickly than average
- Are less likely to develop problems with intimacy as adults
- Have a lower mortality rate, especially among premature infants
- Spit up less and have reduced incidence of colic
- Experience less vertigo and increased physical agility in adulthood, a superior sense of balance, precision of movement, and an acute spatial awareness