Baby walkers are banned in Canada, and have been since April 2004... and I can't really see a good reason for it.
I've seen reasons for it online: babies in walkers have a higher risk of injury (pulling things over on themselves, reaching more dangerous objects that would normally be out of their reach, falling down stairs, etc), and babies in walkers learn to walk later than babies who don't use walkers.
... eh?
Now, I didn't research any of this, this is just stuff I came across on the Internet and thought was quite stupid. I haven't actually seen a baby walker in years, so I don't know if their design has changed at all from what I've seen growing up, but I've seen old pictures of babies in walkers and I never had any problems with them.
I had a walker when I was a baby, so did my brothers and so did some of my cousins. I have never once heard any stories about either me, my brothers, or my cousins having any of the problems mentioned above because of our use of walkers.
The walkers that my brothers and I had as babies were basically the equivalent of a parent holding us by the arms to let us pretend to walk, except that there were wheels instead of parents and we were being supported by the lower body instead of the arms. We moved the walkers with our feet, so it was kind of like walking without actually walking.
There was never a higher risk of injury us because of the walkers, and here's why: our parents didn't stop supervising us just because we were in walkers. My parents didn't just put me in the walker and wander off somewhere where I wasn't in their line of vision (that's what the playpen was used for). I was supervised when I was in the walker the same way I was supervised when I was actually able to walk around for real when I got older. Actually, there was probably more danger for me without the walker than there was with one.
When I was a baby I lived in a trailer that pretty much posed no danger to me walker or no walker (except for the furnace right there in the kitchen but I never had any run-ins with it... because my parents aren't brain-dead). My brothers, on the other hand, were born while we were all living with my grandmother. My grandmother's house was pretty much one story except for the small flight of stairs in the kitchen, a flight of stairs which was easily accessible to everyone there and was located right next to an even longer flight of stairs (that only one brother ever fell down and that was when he was much older) that goes into the basement.
Not once did me or my brothers, walker or no walker, ever fall down either of those flights of stairs. My brothers are twins and the two of them each had a walker, so that's two babies in two walkers wandering around and not once did they ever hurt themselves while using them. It's my belief that babies who get hurt while in the walkers don't get hurt because they're in walkers, but because their parents don't pay attention.
My brothers never once fell down my grandmothers stairs in those walkers because they never got a chance to. My parents, grandmother and any other adult present made sure that my brothers didn't go near the stairs. And even if they did somehow get to the stairs there was a gate there to prevent them from falling down.
So it's my opinion that the walkers themselves don't cause injuries to children, inattentive and unprepared parents do. Just like you wouldn't leave a toddler walking around unsupervised, you wouldn't leave a baby in a walker unsupervised.
So that's it for the first problem. Now onto the second one: delayed walking.
I have no idea if that's true or not. I don't really see how walkers could cause that unless the baby is in the walker all the time with no floor time or anything (but again, that's the fault of the parent and not the walker itself).
All I can say to that is that my brothers and I all had walkers. I started walking when I was 10 months old, and both of my brothers were walking by their first birthday.
No comments:
Post a Comment