We need to talk about papooses
“No man ever got sexier wearing a papoose,” raged Piers Morgan on seeing a photo of the Prime Minister carrying his new baby in a baby carrier.
Very few commentators have engaged sympathetically with what Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds have been through over the past few months. Bringing a new life into the world is a cataclysmic event for anyone; to combine this life-changing event with the sh*tstorm that is 2020, and throwing the hospitalisation of one of the baby’s parents into the mix seems like some kind of divine retribution.
But as a professional adviser to new parents and parents-to-be I feel obliged to explain to readers of TheArticle what all this is about — and what it should be about.
Let’s not spend time on Piers Morgan’s view of what makes a man sexier. I speak as a woman who, as an antenatal teacher, has met an awful lot of beautiful men at postnatal reunions with babies strapped to their chests. The rush of manly pride, the surge of protective, nurturing hormones which a new baby brings — to be honest these make them positively glow, despite the bags under their eyes. We always expect new mothers to glow, but when new fathers do as well, it takes you by surprise, and is all the more moving.
What I wish people would talk about is — why are parents using slings to hold their babies in? What’s the point of them? It would be nice to see the media even using the right words: the thing Boris is using is a structured baby carrier, not a “harness” as one paper described it. And, dear Piers, it is not a “papoose”. I’m no expert on Native American practices so I am prepared to be corrected, but “papoose” is usually applied to a wooden board with a sort of pocket attached used for carrying a baby, swaddled tightly, on a parent’s back. Not a particularly helpful situation for the baby. He or she can’t even see their parent, let alone feel their body through the wooden board. Tight swaddling can cause hip dysplasia.
This is because young baby has a hip joint rather shallower than yours or mine. The femur sits best in the socket when the baby’s legs are drawn up in a “froggy” position. Forcing a baby’s legs into a straight-down position can cause the joint to pop out — hip dysplasia. Very nasty. Our ancestors, with little knowledge of anatomy, didn’t realise this and thought that babies’ legs needed to be forced into a “proper” position. Ancestors are often right, but not always.
The structured baby carrier is fine for older babies, with stronger spines, but they make my heart sink when I see a very small baby in one. I can see at once how the baby’s weight is being supported by their pelvic floor, causing pressure downwards through the spine, which isn’t ready to take that kind of pressure. I can see the little legs hanging down rather than being supported under the knees in the optimal froggy position.
By contrast, a wrap sling, basically a long piece of jersey fabric, is much more comfortable in the long run, as the fabric adjusts and spreads around both the parent’s and baby’s bodies. But they take a little practice to get used to and so many parents go straight for the structured carrier.
If you know anyone about to have a baby please show them this article, in case they decide to follow Boris’s example, because he is doing pretty well everything wrong. In fact I think I’m going to be using this picture in classes in future as an example of how not to wear a baby carrier.
With all types, it’s really rather important that the baby can breathe. If the baby is dangling low on the parent’s body, the baby’s body will curl up and the lungs will be compressed. If the parent cannot see the baby’s face, they can’t be certain their airways are not obstructed. And the baby’s weight should be distributed evenly across their back, with their legs in the froggy position — imagine the little one’s feet, knees and bottom making a capital letter “M”, and they are OK.
Exactly the opposite of how wee Wilf is being carried. How was this allowed to happen? Who in the 10 Downing Street staff looked at that carrier, its shoulder straps many inches too long, the baby swinging like a pendulum near the Prime Minister’s navel, and thought “that looks OK”? Was there literally nobody who knew how to put a baby in a sling? Don’t the couple have any kind of professional help? As one of my colleagues caustically observed, the dog was being carried more safely than the baby.
There are so many reasons why slings are brilliant for new babies and their parents. They hold the baby snuggled close to a human chest, where they feel safest. So the baby relaxes and thrives. The sling enables the parent to be subtly aware of the baby’s behaviour and to effortlessly to learn the baby’s signals. So the parent-baby bond thrives. The sling holds the baby upright so that trapped air has a good chance of getting up and out, so less “colic”. And (this was the clincher for me) the parent has two free hands. Indeed there is much to applaud in a Prime Minister who is happy to be seen babywearing. But the fact that he seems incapable of doing it properly, or even seeking the right advice on doing it — this is what’s depressing, far more than whether he looks “sexy” or not.
