Good Reasons for Babywearing

Dr. Ewald Fettweis, Orthopaedic Specialist, Aachen

Published in "Deutsche Hebammenzeitschrift" (German Midwifery Journal), issue 12/2015

False Claims in a Press Release

A press release recently circulated from the Deutsches Grünes Kreuz (German Green Cross, DGK) about carrying children in wraps. It advised against the practice, claiming children could suffer damage to their spinal discs. False claims were used to support this statement. The release caused considerable uncertainty among parents, midwives, and some doctors.

After a dismissively toned remark about babies being "tightly bound", it claimed that the idea of baby wraps originated in Africa and South America so that women could keep their hands free for work. This is simply wrong.

The Origins of Babywearing

Carrying on the body is, in fact, the original form of infant care in both the Old and New World, across all stages of culture, found both among peoples still living a Stone Age culture today, such as the Pygmies, and among advanced civilisations.

It is the "achievement" of the Western world to have banished children from their mother's body, thereby exposing them to certain health risks. Unlike the birth state of other highly developed mammals such as horses, apes, or elephants, the human newborn is completely helpless: a "secondary nestling" or a "physiological premature birth".

Why Carrying Benefits Children

Nature therefore demands close physical contact with the mother to support physical and mental development. In particular, infants' hip joints are often still immature at birth and can be damaged later on if the environmental conditions nature requires are disregarded. They are, however, ideally built for carrying in a wrap or sling.

The press release further claims that, because we wear shoes and walk on hard asphalt rather than going barefoot, a child's spine is compressed with every step, potentially damaging its discs. It recommends using a well-sprung pram instead.

Despite shoes and asphalt, the chain of joints and the mother's spine cushion the child well, better in fact than any pram! Carrying on the body is recommended for good reason. Proper guidance on the correct way to carry a child on the body is, however, essential.

Dr. Ewald Fettweis (1926–2021) was an orthopaedic specialist and, for 19 years, head physician of the orthopaedic clinic at the Vinzenzheim in Aachen, which included a rehabilitation facility for children and young people with physical disabilities. His research into hip dislocation in infants found that it occurred markedly less often among peoples who carry their children on their bodies, a finding on which he based a new treatment method using a seated squat position, making many previously necessary surgeries unnecessary. He was a long-standing member of the medical advisory board of the Trageschule Dresden (Dresden Babywearing School).