Baby Buggies

A new study out of the U.K. suggest that "forward-facing strollers" may not be such a good thing for babies, writes M. Suzanne Zeedyk in the New York Times (3/2/09). Suzanne headed a research team funded by Britain’s National Literacy Trust that "observed 2,700 families with young children walking along main streets in cities and villages throughout Britain." She and her team found that only 11 percent of caregivers using forward-facing strollers "were observed speaking to infants … while the figure was 25 percent for those using toward-facing strollers."

This could be significant, says Suzanne, because "brains develop faster between birth and age three than during any other period of life, and … social interaction fosters such neurological development … Of course, infants do not spend all their time in strollers, but anecdotal evidence suggests that babies can easily spend a couple of hours a day in them. And research tells us that children’s vocabulary development is governed almost entirely by the daily conversations parents have with them."

Suzanne also says it’s not likely that those who buy toward-facing strollers simply speak more than the forward-facing parents because she and her team tracked mothers who used both types of strollers: "Mothers talked to their children twice as much during the 15-minute toward-facing journey, and they also laughed more. The babies laughed more, too." Suzanne admits her research is not conclusive but says we should "think again about how babies experience stroller rides — and other forms of transportation like car seats, shopping carts and slings." ~ Tim Manners, editor.