Putting the Brakes on Infant Walkers
A mother at one of the message boards I frequent posted a
question recently about using infant walkers. Her pediatrician
had recommended she not use a walker with her five-month-old and
she was wondering the reasoning behind it, since her son seemed
to love it so much.
Parenting a small baby is filled with dangers and frustrations,
and you constantly teeter between fear of everything that your
baby comes in contact with and desperately trying to find
something - anything- that will keep your baby entertained for a
few precious minutes while you fix dinner, get dressed, or just
not have to watch the baby. Any time you find something that
seems innocuous, you are bathed in relief if your baby shows
interest. And if you discover a toy she loves that appears to be
developmentally encouraging, you feel as if you've struck the
jackpot. I can remember a couple of weeks when the mobile in
Maddie's crib was one of the few things that would calm her down
if she was crying (and when wasn't she?); I could put her in her
crib and turn the mobile on and she'd stare, entranced, while I
used the time to, oh, get dressed or brush my teeth. During
those times, I thanked God for that mobile and knew that if had
cost ten times its price I would have gladly paid it for the
peace it brought me.
Infant walkers can seem like such a godsend: babies who hit 5 or
6 months seem eager to be moving, almost straining to charge
forward. Their joy at having some control over their movement is
plain to anyone who watches them in such a toy, and you wonder
how it could be bad for them. Sure, everyone's heard the stories
of babies in walkers falling down stairs and dying, but is that
it? If you put a gate across your stairs, doesn't that solve the
problem and make the walker a safe and even beneficial toy for
your child?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. I've heard repeated questions
from mothers about walkers, bewildered moms trying to figure out
why this seemingly great toy is so vehemently opposed by many
medical professionals. So I've tried to gather the information
for you and break down a few common misconceptions about the
walker, to help everyone understand why it's not the best toy
for a baby.
"We don't have stairs/ I always use the child protective gate/ I
never leave my child alone in the walker. How can it possibly be
a health hazard to them then?" The most obvious danger to a baby
in a walker is the most visible one - the stairs. Many babies
have died after walking themselves to the edge of a staircase
and falling down it. But that's not the only way accidents can
happen. The walker can get caught on an edge of carpet, a
doorframe, or a piece of furniture, causing the walker to tip
over. Baby can hit his head against a coffee table edge or
become trapped under the walker. According to a study published
in 2002, one in every three babies who use a walker will suffer
significant injuries including skull fractures, finger
amputation, spinal cord injury, and death. That's one in three.
No matter how closely you watch your baby, no matter how quickly
you move, you may not be able to prevent that accident. And
think about the injuries such as burns or poisonings that happen
because babies are able to reach things that would otherwise be
inaccessible. According to the AAP, 8,800 babies under the age
of 15 months went to the emergency room as a result of using a
walker in 1999 alone.
"How can a walker be bad for my baby developmentally? My son is
already almost standing, and loves being able to move himself
around. Isn't this helping him learn to walk sooner by giving
him practice?" You would think so, but no. Walkers encourage use
of your lower legs, but not your upper legs which are so
important to standing. That makes sense, since it's for babies
who aren't yet able to support themselves. So you're not giving
the standing muscles any type of a workout, and you're actually
helping the skill develop backwards.
See, motor skills mature in a baby from the head down. That
makes sense since the top's where the brain is. If you notice,
babies begin to control their waving arms before their legs;
babies have fine motor skills in their hands before their feet.
Development travels down. You can see the natural progression in
the way babies begin to move. First, the head lifts off the
ground. Then the head and the back. Then babies push onto all
fours. Then they begin to practice balancing by sitting. Then
finally, they stand. There's a flow to this that is organic and
natural, and moving a baby to a walker before their body's ready
to walk disrupts that. A 1998 study proved that babies who used
walkers hit their developmental milestones like crawling and
walking later than babies who didn't. And this wasn't 10 babies;
it was 109 babies between the ages of 6 and 15 months. In
addition, this study reports that there's a neurological
disconnect between what babies are actually doing and what they
are aware they're doing; the plastic tray prevents them from
seeing their feet, which keeps them from connecting what's going
on down there with what they are experiencing. So there's no
motor development learning going on. On average, babies who
didn't use a walker began walking at about their 10th month,
while those who used walkers were on average 12 months old when
they began walking.
"I'm not convinced. My mom used a walker and I began walking
when I was seven months old! And anyway, my grandmother used a
walker, my mom used a walker, and none of us kids got hurt.
Seems like a mom's wisdom is better than these obscure studies."
First off, there are exceptions to every rule. For every child
who began walking at 7 months there's one who didn't start until
14 months. That's why studies are done with large numbers of
babies instead of one or two. Second, my parents' generation
didn't use car safety seats, and none of my parents' friends'
babies died, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to use a car
seat. Studies have shown they save lives, and I know I'm keeping
my baby safe by using one. Watching my child die in an emergency
room because I didn't use a car seat because everyone I know got
on fine without one is not an option to me.
"Studies can be found to support anything. Anyone can take
numbers and twist them to suit their argument." I totally agree,
so there are several links at the end of this to articles I've
drawn from or read to write this piece.
Here's the bottom line: the American Academy of Pediatrics
strongly discourages the use of walkers. They have been
petitioning the U.S. government since 1995 to ban walkers, and
renewed their efforts after Canada in 2004 banned the sale or
advertising or importing of ANY new or used walkers. So the AAP
says not to. Your doctor says not to. Don't you think there's a
good reason for it?
http://www.drgreene.com/21_810.html
http://www.cwru.edu/pubaff/univcomm/rel-archive/babywalk.htm
http://www.chiropractors.asn.au/aboutchiro/press/280402.html
http://www.aap.org/pubed/ZZZZDGTUP5D.htm
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/washing/ban_baby_walkers.htm