Babywearing

Babywearing is the practice of wearing or carrying a baby in a sling or in another form of carrier. Babywearing has been practiced for centuries around the world. In the industrialized world, babywearing has gained popularity in recent decades. Part of the reason for this shift is due to the influence of advocates of attachment parenting. Babywearing is a form of baby transport which can be enjoyed for as long as mutually desired, often until toddlerhood and beyond .

Dr. William Sears, a pediatrician, coined the phrase attachment parenting. One of Sears' principles of attachment parenting is babywearing and he attributes many benefits to babywearing and the in-arms style of parenting.

The benefits of babywearing include:

Studies of parent-child attachment, parental satisfaction and infant crying all point to babywearing as an ideal solution for parents to provide an optimum environment for attachment between parent and child. Baby carriers and slings help increase the number of hours a day an infant is held, and there is an inverse relationship between the number of hours spent crying and the number of hours a child is held in a given day. Even three hours per day of babywearing reduces infant crying significantly, and at 13 months, babies who have been in soft carriers regularly are significantly more likely to be securely attached than babies who are carried in hard carriers.

Babywearing allows the wearer to have two free hands to accomplish tasks such as laundry while caring for the baby's need to be held or be breastfed. Babywearing offers a safer alternative to placing a car seat on top of a shopping cart. It also allows children to be involved in social interactions and to see their surroundings as an adult would.

It follows that many sling and soft carrier users have found that carrying their infant is much easier on the back and shoulders than lugging them in a car seat. The weight of the child is spread more evenly across the upper body and they don't have to struggle with a bulky, hard and awkward car seat.

There are many different types of carriers available to purchase or swap, and they can also easily and cheaply be made by the parent or caregiver, also laws in the United States have now limited the legality of manufacturing carriers and slings. Wraps, slings, mei tais, and soft structured carriers with buckles (also referred to as SSCs)make up the vast majority of carriers. In the western world, carriers can also be seen as a fashion statement and be worn as part of an outfit. They come in many different designs and colors and are available in many different types of fabrics from specialist manufacturers, including bamboo, silk, hemp, cotton, wool, fleece, flax/linen and more recently some synthetic blends such as Repreve and Tencel.

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