Babywearing: Advocating for Education, Not Fear Mongering

Unfortunately, Monday morning brought sad news of a two-day-old Australian baby who died while being worn in a sling.

So, again, with the unfolding of such an unfortunate tragedy, the practice of babywearing will most likely be thrust into the limelight, complete with advice medical doctors who have no experience with slings forming all kinds of warnings for parents to avoid the alleged dangers of babywearing.

And because my heart absolutely aches for the mother who lost her precious baby while wearing her little one and because I whole-heartedly believe babies are safest when pressed against the skin of a care giver, I feel compelled to say it again:

Any baby item can be dangerous!


Carseats, baby swings, baby cribs -- any place babies can slip into the dangerous chin-to-chest position and block off tiny airways must be monitored.

BUT the art and practice of babywearing is safe.


In fact, I would argue that the art and practice of wearing your baby snuggled against your skin where the rise and fall of baby's chest can be felt is safer than leaving baby to sleep alone, unmonitored in a car seat or crib.

With that said, we must spend time educating parents on how to ensure baby is in correct positioning in ALL baby gear items, including car seats, swings and carriers.

And we babywearing advocates and instructors must send time helping parents understand best practices of baby wearing so they will not be tricked into thinking that all baby gear and baby carriers are inherently safe or alternately not safe.


But, first, let's briefly talk baby carriers and why all carries are NOT made equally.

Some slings,like the recalled Infantino Slingriders that have caused infant deaths and are commonly referred to as bag slings, should not even be marketed as baby carriers because there is NO way to safely carry a baby in such a sling.


These slings are worn around the parents' neck and body much like a messenger bag is worn. Babies who are placed into the deep pockets of these slings are at risk for suffocation because their bodies are positioned in a C shape where the child's neck often touches her chest and restricts airways. All the while, the poor mom or dad wearing baby could be oblivious to any danger because baby is all the way down by mom or dad's belly button.

(image courtesy of Walmart.com)
ALL bag slings -- like the Infantino Slingrider -- are so dangerous; they violate every babywearing best practice instruction we babywearing instructors teach:



Baby should be close enough to kiss.
Baby should never have his chin resting on his chest.
Baby's head should be above the rest of her body.
Baby's knees should be higher than his butt.
Baby's face shouldn't be covered by fabric.
Baby's head should be supported.



Not only do bag slings -- like the Slingrider -- defy EVERY SINGLE ONE of these safety musts, they also give reputable ring slings and pouches, like Sakura Bloom ring slings, a bad name.

Can reputable slings be worn less than ideally? Of course! Remember, sometimes carseats are also used drastically wrong, with baby's chin falling to the chest and restricting little airways.


But reputable carriers are designed so that the wearer can, indeed, adhere to the best practice guidelines {remember, baby should be visible and kissable}. We now also have the Baby Carrier Industry Alliance working with the ASTM to establish a voluntary standard for sling-style carriers that allow wearers to adhere to best practices while wearing their babies.  

And companies who sell sound babywearing products, like Sakura Bloom, send best practice guidelines with their slings that explicitely explain the tennents of babywearing safety.

So while the media circulates news stories about the "dangers" of babywearing that only promote fear without sharing education on best practices on positioning a new baby,  let's ensure that we babywearing advocates {and carseat-and-swing-safety advocates} pass along information on best positions for newborns and babies inside and outside of carriers.

I think we owe it to all the babies and families out there who have experienced such tragedies as well as those caregivers who would like to remember, honor the beautiful little lives lost as they care for the little ones in their arms.

For more safety and carrier information, visit:
http://www.thebabywearer.com/ or http://www.babywearinginternational.com/


Please note: Baby E is being worn in the tummy to tummy position in a Kimz Kreations ring sling. He is one week old in the first picture and two weeks old in the second. Please be sure to note that the fabric is covering the back of his head in the second picture, but his little nose and mouth are clear of fabric and are tilted up away from his chest.

Babywearing: Rebozo

By Marion Scott

My baby was the one you could hear from down the hall.

Doors all along the hallway of the Mother-Baby Unit shut as the nurse brought 5 pounds and 2 ounces of scrawny, screaming irritation back to me once again.

After a physically uneventful but emotionally draining year, I was completely unprepared for a premature birth, forced labor and botched delivery.

Apparently baby was not ready, either.

It was weeks before I could sit down, months before I could sit down without pain. Days before baby could latch on, weeks before he wanted to latch.

Family came and went before the weather could turn. They marveled at baby’s tiny body and earsplitting voice. I notified the silence where baby’s father had been: “Baby boy born. Mother and baby fine.”

I tried to cook and clean for my patient husband, our new marriage trapped in non-verbal infancy and the frustration of novelty: diapers, dryer vents, drugstores, dirt.

Nights were measured in one-hour intervals. Days ran into one another strung together by the constant motion of bouncing, moving, swaying, walking around and around in circles on my carpet path. Housebound by doctors’ orders and winter storms I sometimes wore earplugs to dull the constant crying until I, too, became dull.

Dull. Alone. Sinking inside.

In my more lucid moments, I thought this must be punishment for unplanned pregnancy. No friends, no network, no family and no peace. I never registered for baby things thanks to the kind lady at the Pregnancy Center who gave me a crib, a stroller and some maternity clothes. Lacking a periodical subscription, a Babies R Us and an internet connection, I did not hear the term “Postpartum Depression” until well after the postpartum stage.

Books lived on the nightstands, on the counters, on the edge of the crib. Straight lines of text balanced the erratic daily mood swings, until they joined one day in a black-and-white picture book from 1961 entitled Children and their Mothers.

Grainy photos of black and white skin, poverty and prosperity, new world, old world, third world glared starkly in the glow of my nightlight. Mothers from around the world, sad and happy, eating, healing, resting, nursing, working, starving, dying. In homes, hospitals, clinics, hovels and ditches.


But the babies! The babies were content, peaceful, unaware of their circumstances. And for every sleepy, drooly, placid baby there was a piece of cloth, a basket, a scarf, a pack which held them up high on their mother’s body.

In the morning, after my tired husband left for work, I took a flat sheet and ripped it in half longwise. Looking in the mirror for perhaps the first time in weeks, I tried to tie a band around my body, wrapping the length and width around mummy-like.

I looked at the tiny body clawing at his blanket on my bed and then at the quantity of fabric wrapped around my middle. Looked at the picture of the African mamas washing, sewing, cleaning socializing with babies on their backs. Unwound the sheet and picked up now-frantic baby … and stuffed him feet-first into the top of my sports bra.

This became our morning exercise routine. Daddy leave for work. Baby wake up again. Mommy frantically strip her shirt off and nurse angry baby, then stuff him semi-upright in her bra and begin walking our carpet path.

After a few days, baby quieted after only minutes of protest, dosing in his tight elastic nest on top of mommy’s chest, all his bony arms and legs folded in, securely held. After a few weeks I got braver. I knew how to do something! I could cook, I could clean, I could help my baby feel better, if only for a few hours.

We got braver as the weather worsened and nights began before dinnertime. I half-expected to be stopped by a police car on our first walk around the block.

Ma’am, what is that lump under your coat?

Just a sleeping baby, warm in his swaddling of shirts and scarves, only the top of his hat visible under my chin.

Deep snow, deeper quiet, an hours’ respite from fighting our housebound demons.

By spring baby had outgrown his nest.

A new internet connection brought news of warmer weather, lists of garage sales and links to baby stores.

I dragged out a used Snugli and diaper-pinned the straps back on. Baby objected to this new, open-air insecurity. What luck when I found a “real” sling at Walmart! It was huge--I pushed and pulled the padding through the rings, removed stitching, chopped ends and generally mangled it into submission. Miles, weeks and two aching shoulders later, I found a new website. La Leche League led to Jenrose led to Jan Andrea led to my sewing machine and finally a simple pouch sling emerged.

We went to the grocery store together, baby, the pouch, and I. The white people stared, the gentleman in the milk aisle shook his head.

“What will they think of next? That baby is going to fall out on the floor!”

But the old Mexican lady buying bushels of tomatoes adjusted the stretch of fabric across my back with a gap-toothed smile and tucked the edges under baby’s knees.

The deli girl told me of her grandmother and her country as plastic-gloved hands mimed tying straps and tucking fabric.

“Rebozo?” asked a man sorting oranges, then let loose a torrent of Spanish.“Rebozo?”

“Rebozo?” I asked my Spanish-speaking mother a few weeks later.

Doubtful about my invention, she was heartened by my combed hair and babbling baby.



The wall between us cast shadows in either direction, baby rising every day, the noon sun of compromise.

A few months later she returned from a missions trip, thinned and warmed by hotter climate. She handed me two strips of brightly woven cloth with fringe at the ends.

The weave was open, the cotton soft and flexible. Meshlike, the scarves stretched and curved around the curve of baby’s peeking face.

“Rebozo,” said my mother, as she tied it around baby and me. “Rebozo.”


Marion Scott is wife to a patient man, mother to four youngsters and designer of the CatBird Baby Pikkolo. A babywearing pioneer of sorts here in the area, she's been wearing her babies intermittently for the past ten years, well before many slings were readily available on the market. She is the liaison for Babywearing International of Chicagoland, our local babywearing group. I'm proud to call her a babywearing mentor and friend.

Babywearing: PSA -- Kissable and Visible

After the duffel bag sling recall, a few sling makers began a new safety campaign of sorts to help moms and dads identify whether baby is being worn safely: Kissable and Visible.
Baby E. volunteered to be a model for how NOT to be worn yesterday at the Sillicon Valley Moms Chevrolet Missions event where brands and the Chicago Mom Bloggers had a chance to dialogue and mingle.

So is baby's face visible?

Check!

And kissable?

EHHHHHHHHH!
No; baby's face should be visible and kissable simultaneously. And, thus, baby should NOT be worn like this in a sling while standing. Especially, while his mother is Tweeting. Now, while she's seated, it's probably not a big deal, but in that case, when mama stands up she should not forgot that her baby wriggled like crazy and she loosened the sling so she and baby could sit comfortably. (Which I --- errr SHE -- didn't, so we're safe.)

Disclaimer: No babies were harmed in the making of this Public Service Announcement. The only thing that suffered was the Tweeting mother's bruised ego when she realized someone had snapped a picture that could potentially be used as a PSA for improper sling wearing. However, she has been advised to not beat herself up because she was sitting and conscious of her decision to loosen said sling while in a seated position, thus not actually putting her baby at risk for injury.

Here, the Tweeting mother demonstrated how a sling should be worn:


Visible and kissable.


Photo credit: Lahleyoo

Babywearing: The real deal on safety

Brace yourselves, babywearing parents.

If we thought we got inquiring looks for slinging our babies before, I'm sure we're in for a firestorm of more than just curious glances now that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is preparing to issue a warning about infants having suffocated in popular slings sold at our local Target.

And it might not be such a bad thing.

I want the conversations to begin flowing when I'm wearing my babes mostly because my heart weeps for the parents who lost their little ones while trying to wear their babies close to them. It's terribly heartbreaking that these moms and dads wanted to love and protect their babes by wearing them, and just the opposite happened when their precious little ones suffocated while being worn.

So this warning/recall is important. Yes, it's so very vital, not only because these slings are responsible for deaths but also because this warning will further thrust babywearing into the spotlight.

And though I'm praying that the warning/recall will clearly explain and define why the types of slings that have caused these terribly tragic deaths are dangerous, I, for one, am not willing to leave any of the babywearing education to a government safety commission.

Because the CPCS's job isn't to educate the public about safe babywearing.

And its job isn't to broadcast that the act of babywearing is or isn't dangerous; rather its job is to sound about which products are unsafe.

While it's important to know which products are unsafe, we need to ensure parents and caregivers understand why these recalled slings are unsafe so they can make informed decisions when purchasing a carrier.

So let me stand from my blogtop and scream it:

Any baby item can be dangerous!

BUT the art and practice of babywearing is safe. ***

Once parents understand best practices of baby wearing, they will not be tricked into thinking that all baby carriers are inherently safe or alternately not safe.

The slings, Infantino Slingriders, that have caused infant deaths are commonly referred to as bag slings, and they should not even be marketed as baby carriers.

These slings are worn around the parents' neck and body much like a messenger bag is worn. Babies who are placed into the deep pockets of these slings are at risk for suffocation because their bodies are positioned in a C shape where the child's neck often touches her chest and restricts airways. All the while, the poor mom or dad wearing baby could be oblivious to any danger because baby is all the way down by mom or dad's belly button.

(image courtesy of Walmart.com)

ALL bag slings -- like the Infantino Slingrider -- are so dangerous; they violate every babywearing best practice instruction we babywearing instructors teach:

Baby should be close enough to kiss.
Baby should never have his chin resting on his chest.
Baby's head should be above the rest of her body.
Baby's knees should be higher than his butt.
Baby's face shouldn't be covered by fabric.
Baby's head should be supported.



Not only do bag slings -- like the Slingrider -- defy EVERY SINGLE ONE of these safety musts, they also give reputable ring slings and pouches, like Hotslings and Sakura Bloom ring slings, a bad name.

Can reputable slings be worn less than ideally? Of course! {Remember, sometimes carseats are also used drastically wrong.} But reputable carriers are designed so that the wearer can, indeed, adhere to the best practice guidelines {remember, baby should be visible and kissable}.

And companies who sell sound babywearing products, like the aforementioned ones, send best practice guidelines with their slings that explicitely explain the tennents of babywearing safety.

We must advocate for babywearing. We know how beneficial it is to the health of families -- parents and babies alike.

We must also advocate safety by educating parents about the dangers of specific slings like bag slings but also by teaching overarching babywearing best practice guidlelines. The CPSC statement probably will scare parents away from these bag slings. But that is likely all the warning will accomplish alone.

Instead of fearing the CPSC warning will give babywearing a bad name, let's speak up for babies' safety and sound sirens of warning about unsafe baby slings and practices alongside the commission.

And then let's take it a step further by educating parents about babywearing best practices so that parents feel secure in holding their babies close. Because we want every parent to feel comfortable with wearing their babies. Shouldn't they all reap the benefits of being close enough to kiss?

Let's wholeheartedly pray that this warning thrusts us babywearers into the limelight so we might be able to educate the public, particularly caregivers and parents, about the many benefits of art of babywearing. And then lets teach parents how to best wear their little ones.

I don't want to see one more baby die from improper positioning in a poorly designed sling, so I, for one, welcome the gawking and comments because it will just open the flood gates for best practices to flow.

For more safety and carrier information, visit:
http://www.thebabywearer.com/ or http://www.babywearinginternational.com/

EDIT after inquiries: Baby EJ is being worn in the tummy to tummy position in a Kimz Kreations ring sling. He is one week old in the first picture and two weeks old in the second. Please be sure to note that the fabric is covering the back of his head in the second picture, but his little nose and mouth are clear of fabric and are tilted up away from his chest.

***EDIT: I have edited this part of my orginal post to state that I feel the art of babywearing is safe. There is no safer place for baby to be than snuggled up right againts mom or dad's chest. Babywearing allows babies to be under the constant care and attention of their caregivers.***

If you would like, please leave a link to your own babywearing safety blog post. :)