How A Forward Facing Pushchair May Have A Negative Impact On Your Child's Development

If you are planning on buying a new buggy/pushchair for your child you will probably have considered many factors but have you thought about which way your child will sit in the pushchair. You might be interested in some new research from Dundee University that suggests that forward-facing pushchairs may not be good for a child's development.

Current studies into children carried in forward facing pushchairs have determined that this may stress babies and sometimes inhibit their development. The cause appears to be that the baby doesn't get enough communication with their mother or father and has difficulty in attracting their attention. Infants need ongoing interaction and it is an extremely valuable element of their development, if they are in a pram for any amount of time where this is not feasible it could have a critical consequence on them.

The stress caused to these children as a result of not being able to get noticed by their parent and the parent being unaware of how much distress the child is in, could have a lasting effect, causing them to mature into nervous adults.

The study was undertaken at Dundee University by a developmental psychologist who observed more than two thousand parents walking with their children in both front-facing and backward facing strollers. She found that parents with their children in rear-facing pushchairs were twice as likely to speak to their babies and infants as those with infants facing away from them.

The average time for a British infant to remain in a buggy is up to 120 minutes a day and a good number are placed in front facing buggies as most mothers believe that children want to look out at the world.

A more restricted study was carried out with 20 babies who were taken for a mile across an urban centre, for the first part of the trip they were in front facing buggies and for the second half they were in backward facing buggies. Yet again they discovered that the mothers who could see their babies faces were a great deal more likely to chat to them and to discuss 'varied and interesting' topics.

They saw a major discrepancy in the incidence of the babies and infants laughing - in those children facing towards their mother half of the children laughed during the trip against only one of the babies facing away from their mothers.

So if you are planning to buy a baby stroller this may be something to give serious thought to.