Recommendations by Dorothee Neumärker, Bochum

(Physiotherapist and course organiser for baby massages)

Information concerning a sling:

Researchers have been designating human babies as “clinging young”. Clinging young actively try to maintain contact to their mother’s body.

New born babies show a pronounced sense of balance. Self-clasp and positional reflexes are present. They enable the baby to get hold of something, and to change its position for example to free its respiratory system.

When we lift up a lying baby it automatically assumes the spread-squat position. The posture of a naked baby also indicates that it is “prepared” to be carried. It has its legs widely spread, and after a few weeks it can actively lift them, which corresponds to enclosure of the hips.

Being carried has a lot of positive effects on a baby that has been prepared to be carried by nature:

• The mother’s movements stimulate all nerve endings in the baby’s skin, muscles, and joints.
• The mother’s movements require a compensating reaction on the baby’s part. This activates the physical strengths of the baby, thus age-appropriate use of them.
• Respiration is activated, thus resulting in enhanced blood supply to the internal organs.
• The developing immune system receives stimulating impulses by respiration, movement, and contact.
• The action of the child’s bowels is supported, flatulence decreases.
  
  

==> All in all, carrying encourages sound and powerful development.

The new born’s spine is “rounded” due to the cramped position in the womb. Only in the course of development of its motor skills does a child starts to raise its head in order to improve its perception of the environment. Then it learns to stabilise the upper part of its body. Only when it has learnt to walk, the spine shaping process is completed.

The frequently heard warnings that baby’s back could become bent as a result of being carried in a sling is thus unfounded. However, an important precondition for this unobjectionability is  use of a tight fitting yet elastic sling for carrying your baby. The Hoppediz® sling corresponds to these requirements.

The development of the hips is positively influenced by carrying in a sling. The spread and tucked up position of the legs has an optimal influence in regard to the maturing of the femoral heads. The correct carrying position resembles the position in a Frejka pillow.

The reward for the person carrying is an invigoration of his or her own muscles. If some advice is observed, a considerable relief of one’s own body can be achieved in comparison to transportation without a carrying aid. The following ergonomic tips for carrying have proven to be particularly helpful:

•  It makes sense to change the carrying position.If you carry your child on your hip a change to the other side should be sufficient.Even a change from cross-carry in front to rucksack-carry makes sense (please observe the age of the child).
• If the person carrying suffers from scoliosis (curvature of the spine) symmetrical carrying variants should be preferred.
• Carrying time should be increased gradually.
• The sling is correctly tied when you sense that your baby is securely resting against your body, and it is no longer necessary to stabilise or tauten the sling by lifting or squaring your shoulders.This would quickly result in tension.In the beginning it could be helpful to control your position in a mirror.
• It is also important for the person carrying to tie the child with the sling tightly to his or her own body.With a loose sling you have to cope with other (and more insecure) weight ratios and leverage forces.Thus a doubling of the charge can easily be obtained!
  
  

Finally we would like to explain that the child in the sling obtains many development stimuli for its sensory perceptions, and that it is able to establish more intense contact with its environment in this position. The sling provides those of us carrying with much freedom of movement and many possibilities that a push chair cannot give us. It is up to us, the carrying persons, to consider the sensations that correspond to the age of a child, and what we can expect from the child. In order to be able to assess this, it would be a helpful exercise to put oneself in the position of the child and to look at the world through the child’s eyes.

 

Dorothee Neumärker, Bochum

Physiotherapist and course organiser for baby massages