Around the Web…

Some links for your Friday afternoon:

• Away-facing strollers may cause stress in babies — CNN.com
• A beginner’s guide to baby skin conditions — lilSugar
• Five questions to ask your OB before you get pregnant — Health.com
• Day two of the MySpace suicide trial gets emotional — Jezebel
• J.K. Rowling vows to donate proceeds from her latest book to children’s charities — ParentDish

Comments

The strollers study was really over-simplified. I hate reports like this. There are other factors that researchers did not appear to take into account. For instance, was there anything similar about the parents who used away-facing strollers? Maybe many of them don’t talk to their children at other times. With how many away-facing strollers exist, I refuse to believe they alone are causing babies and children to grow up stressed. If that was the case, most children would leave miserable lives and have developmental problems and that is just not the case.

- MB on November 21st, 2008

I am a bit bias on the subject as I don’t use strollers at all, so I do happen to agree with that study to an extent.

While pregnant I did a lot of baby-spotting while going for walks/shopping and too many times (in fact, almost every day – to this day) have I seen mothers pushing their baby/toddler around in a stroller facing outwards while the poor thing is screaming their head off begging to get out – whereas the babies close to their mother chest in a sling or carrier were content as could be.

I can’t imagine how anyone who regularly pushes their child around in a chair facing out to the world – couldn’t – understand that it is not the perfect environment for a baby/toddler outside the house.

It stops basic interaction skills while out.
We have always used carriers and slings for our 13 month old, not strollers, and while we walk/shop we chit chat with her and explain what is going on and what we are seeing.
That is not possible with a stroller unless you stop every two steps to have a conversation and then carry on.

I can very much understand that study.

- N.S on November 21st, 2008

i have to disagree with you on that N.S. i have pushed a lot of kids in a lot of strollers over the years and have easily been able to maintain conversations with them about where we are going and what we are seeing and all of them have been totally relaxed and not at all stressed.
i feel like this ‘study’ doesnt take into account whether the children are put into the stroller upset, whether the parents pay much or any attention to them etc…there seemed to be a lot of factors left out.

- sarah on November 21st, 2008

Interesting study regarding strollers, but like others posted have stated, I think they need to take into consideration other factors affecting the results.

- Lilly on November 22nd, 2008