From the National Literacy Trust:
"A cultural belief also appears to exist in the UK (and among manufacturers) that, once they can sit up, babies benefit from looking out onto the world around them. However, research repeatedly shows that in order for babies to make effective use of that experience of the wider world, they need parents to help mediate and make sense of it for them.
Every occasion that a baby has for interacting with an adult is a valuable one. Neuroscience has revealed that the synapses in a childÂ?s brain multiply 20-fold between the birth and three years of age, a rate that is faster than at any other time in life (Gerhardt, 2005). Infants are born with brains that are already tuned into, and dependent upon, social responses from other people. Thus, on every occasion that a baby has a need for a communicative response from his or her parent, but is unable to obtain it, this creates a low-level stress response in the infant. When such instances of stress occur repeatedly and frequently, they become damaging to infantsÂ? neural, physiological and psychological development. In addition a large body of evidence exists confirming that early interactions between parents and infants have a long-term effect on childrenÂ?s development. Yet there appears to be no previously published research on how baby buggies may affect parent-child interaction. Our research set out to fill this gap.
The research comprised two separate studies. The first, a national observational survey, systematically documented the social interactions during buggy use of 2,722 parent-child pairs, in 54 locations throughout the UK. The second, a small-scale experimental study with 20 mother-infant pairs, monitored both mother-infant interactions and indicators of infant stress during journeys in the two types of buggy Â? facing towards and away from the pusher.
Away-facing buggies formed the majority of observations in the first study: used by 62% of all those observed, rising to 86% for children aged between one and two years. However, they were also associated with a two-fold reduction in speaking, on the part of both parents and infants. Interestingly, infants in toward-facing buggies were twice as likely to be sleeping as infants in away-facing buggies, an unexpected finding that has tentatively been interpreted as an indicator of stress levels.
Our experimental study, observing 20 mother-infant pairs, who took part by travelling in both towards and away-facing buggies, confirmed that mothers spoke more when using towards-facing buggies Â? indeed twice as much as in away-facing buggies. It also showed that mothers and infants were both more likely to laugh in the towards-facing orientation, and that mothers were aware of and surprised by this overall change in communicative interactions with their babies. Finally, the results yielded tentative further evidence for the possibility that buggy orientation could influence child stress: infant heart rates fell slightly when moved into a toward-facing orientation, and they were also more likely to fall asleep in this orientation.
If there is any possibility that the design of buggies is failing to promote infantsÂ? development, then this is a considerable concern. Virtually every family in the UK who has a child under the age of three years will own a buggy. If it can be confirmed, in future research, that Â?turning the buggies aroundÂ? makes a difference to child development, then the manufacturing of Â?emotionally healthyÂ? baby buggies could be an easy, affordable, and achievable intervention for facilitating long-term mental and physical health. Ultimately, though, it is parents who will have the greatest investment in this issue. If buggy design does hold consequences for infant development, as the results of these two studies suggests it does, then they deserve access to this information, in order to make decisions about how best to care for their children."