When We Can Place Our Children in a Baby Walker?

Childrens between 6 and 12 months old usually have a powerful urge to move across the floor. I can still remember the expression of sheer ecstasy on my first son's face as he moved across the floor in his baby walker.

We want our children to be happy. Sometimes we think if we can use a tool that can help to safe our children, like baby walkers. Sometimes short-term delight can lead to unfortunate long-term consequences. Children can't think of the future. With each new choice, consider what this teaches your son, how this will affect your son, what are the implications for your son -- over the long haul.

Since the days when my first son was an infant, we have learned that baby walkers are detrimental to normal development. Many parents think that baby walkers will help children learn to walk. As it turns out, baby walkers interfere with learning to walk. In addition to decreasing the desire to walk by providing an easier alternative, baby walkers strengthen the wrong muscles. The lower legs are strengthened, but the upper legs and hips become relatively weak. The upper legs and hips are most important for walking.

Moreover, children in baby walkers have more accidents than their counterparts. Walkers often tip over when a child bumps into a small toy or the edge of a rug. Along with The American Academy of Pediatrics, I strongly urge parents not to use baby walkers.

For children who want to be upright, an exersaucer can be a nice alternative. These look like baby walkers, but without the wheels. Your son might like a sturdy push-car or wagon. These might look like lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, cars, fire engines, trucks or wagons. With practice, you can learn to choose toys that delight your son while helping him learn what he needs -- instead of short circuiting the process by providing easy, numbing entertainment. That baby walkers is give us advantages and disadvantages.

Baby Walker Injuries Drop

New Walkers Safer, but Pediatricians Still Want Them Banned

By Daniel J.DeNoon
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang,MD

March 7, 2006 -- Baby walker injuries are way down -- but the walkers should be on the way out, a new study concludes.

Invented some 250 years ago, baby walkers make infants mobile -- too mobile, pediatricians say. From 1990 through 2001, baby walker injuries sent nearly 200,000 U.S. babies to emergency rooms. Three out of four of these babies fell down stairs. Most suffered head wounds. Some died.

In 1994, parents got an alternative: stationary activity centers that let kids bounce and swivel and tip without going anywhere. And in 1997, all U.S. walkers had to meet new design standards. Either they had to be too wide to fit through a standard doorway, or they had to have a braking feature that stops the walker at the edge of a step.

Both strategies worked, find Brenda J. Shields and Gary A. Smith, DrPH, of the Center for Injury Research at Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

"There was a 76% decrease in the number of infant-walker-related injuries that were treated in U.S. emergency departments from 1990 through 2001, with a marked decrease occurring between 1994 and 2001," Shields and Smith write.

The study appears in the March issue of Pediatrics.

Most New Injuries From Old Baby Walkers

The drop in injuries beginning in 1994 shows that parents were turning away from walkers in favor of stationary activity centers, Shields and Smith say. Until then, there had been some 23,000 baby-walker-related injuries each year.

And after 1997, a lot fewer babies were falling down stairs in their walkers -- suggesting that the design changes had an effect. In fact, most of the recent stairway falls happened with older walkers that did not meet the new standard.

But why take any risk?

"Infant walkers serve no essential purpose," Shields and Smith write. "Infant walkers do not help a child learn to walk, and, in fact, they can delay normal motor and mental development."

The researchers note that Canada now bans baby walkers. Canadian consumers face fines of up to $100,000 or six months in jail if found in possession of a baby walker, they note.

"Therefore, the U.S. government should follow the lead of the Canadian government and ban the sale, importation, and advertisement of mobile infant walkers in the United States to prevent additional infant-walker-related injuries from occurring to young children," Shields and Smith argue.

In this, they have powerful support. The American Academy of Pediatrics continues its call for a baby-walker ban.

Guidelines for the Safe Use of Baby Walkers

Canada has banned the use of dangerous baby walkers. Unfortunately, other countries have yet to do the same.

Since 1992, the American Academy of pediatrich has asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission to do the same. But that request has been denied although the proposed ban is supported by the Consumer Federation of America, the American Medical Association and other concerned groups.

“Opponents of the proposed ban argue that stairs cause most injuries, not the baby walkers. But since it’s impossible to eliminate stairs, it’s advisable to stop using walkers,” said the editors of Health News.

To appease consumer groups, some manufacturers have redesigned their walkers and have come up with safety features. Still, the fact remains that many walkers are dangerous and pose a threat to your child.

If your child doesn’t have a walker, don’t make the mistake of buying one. If you decide to get one, choose a model that is too wide to fit through doorways and pay close attention to your child.

In Consumer Reports’ Guide to Baby Products, Sandy Jones and Werner Freitag offer the following advice:

• Remove the walker’s wheels to prevent infants from moving too fast and making them more prone to accidents.
• Never leave the child unattended.
• Never use walkers near stairs, steps, or thresholds. Check that surfaces are flat and free of objects that may cause tripping-over either indoors or outdoors.
• To reduce the chance of the child slipping out of the seat, check that both feet of the child touch the floor, and never carry walkers with the child in it.
• To avoid burn injuries, keep the child away from ranges, radiators, space heaters, or fireplaces.
• Always use the walker’s restraint system.
• Follow the manufacturer’s height, weight or age recommendations and stop using the walker when your child has outgrown it.
• Discontinue using the walker should it become damaged or broken.
• Most important, keep the child in view while he or she is in the walker.

That are more advise that can you use to make your baby safety in baby walkers. All of us hope is no more happened accident in baby walkers again.

Did Baby Walkers Are Dangerous?

I think most of parent know what is baby walkers?. Baby walkers in the past is the most useful think for parent in generally.

Baby walkers biking so fast - three or four anxiety a additional - that alike the best alert parents may not be able to avoid disaster, said Diana Willensky in American Health magazine.

Baby walkers collapse downstairs, about-face over in walkers that are snagged by cords, aperture thresholds, and carpeting edges, cycle themselves adjoin hot copse stoves and heaters, abatement over accurate curbs, or tumble into pond pools. Parents should be decidedly alert of old-style x-frame walkers that are still actuality awash in barn sales. These designs accept been amenable for abounding injuries, including feel amputations back a baby duke got bent in the closing x-joint of the anatomy - such models should be discarded, added Sandy Jones and Werner Freitag in Consumer Reports Guide to Babyish Products.

The breadth of time your babyish spends in a ambler determines how decumbent he or she is to accidents. In general, the fact baby walkers can make the accident of accidents increases in kids who absorb an hour or added a day in them. Best accidents occurred in the aboriginal afternoon back alone one ancestor was away.

Parents about acquirement a ambler in the acceptance that it will advice their adolescent airing sooner. Fifty percent of ambler buyers had this consequence but the facts say otherwise. Rather than advice your babyish walk, baby walkers may accomplish things difficult for your child. Freitag, who has developed assurance standards for babyish articles for the American Society for Testing and Materials, said baby walkers may interfere with bare affairs up, ample and bit-by-bit experiences of babies.

This was accurate by a abstraction that showed that the leg accomplishments of babies who acclimated walkers differed abundantly from those who did not In that study, babies who spent a ample time in baby walkers had annealed legs and beneath steps. They additionally leaned advanced added than accouchement who abstruse to airing on their own. In addition abstraction involving twins, the babyish who didnt use a ambler started walking two weeks beforehand than the one who acclimated the accessory for two hours every day.

Now this fact will give us more understanding about the risk for using baby walkers for our baby:

Risk 1: Baby walkers cause babies to walk later
Baby walkers don't help babies walk earlier. In fact, baby walkers may even delay your baby's movement skill development or discourage him from learning to walk on his own.

Risk 2: Baby walkers cause abnormal walking pattern
The baby's legs are not straight when "walking" in the baby walker. The hips and knees are bent and he will tend to walk on tiptoe. This causes him to use and develop the wrong leg muscles for walking. Such abnormal walking pattern may be difficult to correct even when he is out of the baby walker.

Risk 3: Baby walkers can cause serious injuries
Baby walkers are unsafe. Babies can reach a speed of 1 meter per second in baby walker, which is too fast even for an attentive parent to catch should the child speed towards an open door, down the stairs or towards a boiling pot.

So most pediatrichs get comment and give us warnings to don’t use baby walkers again. Because it can be dangerous for our babies. Save our baby!!!. Don’t use baby walkers if the new standard of baby walkers created.

Are Baby Walkers is Safety?

Maybe you and other parents are think if a walker (tools) can help your baby/child learn to walk. In most big country , baby walker for parents is very useful and help them to keep their children, because they think they will not can to keep their baby 24 hours full. But

Most pediatrist make a research and the result is walkers don't help our children walk sooner. Because Ithe fact, baby walkers can delay or block mental development and normal muscle control.
This are many reason that baby walkers is not safe, because our children can do like this:

• Walk along the stairs : which often causes broken bones and severe head injuries. This is reason why most children get hurt in baby walkers.
• Get burned : a child can reach higher when in a walker. A cup of hot coffee on the table, pot handles on the stove, a radiator, a fireplace, or a space heater are all now in baby's reach.
• Be poisoned : reach object that are harmful and dangerous in a walker.
• Get Sick : Alot of children can make some contact with their surroundings, that are not pure, 100% free of bad bacteria.

Most walker injuries happen while adults are watching. A child in a walker can move more than 3 feet in 1 second! Therefore, walkers are never safe to use, even with close adult supervision. Make sure there are no walkers at home or wherever your child is being cared for. Child care facilities should not allow the use of baby walkers. If your child is in child care at a center or at someone else's home, make sure there are no walkers.

On July 1, 1997, new safety standards were implemented for baby walkers. Many pediatrich do some research to find new idea, to make and get a prototype in baby walkers, that are safety and comfort for children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions have called for a ban on the manufacture and sale of baby walkers with wheels. Keep your child safe. . .throw away your baby walker!