Baby Carrier Babies are More Secure
"Strange Situation" Shows Baby Carrier Babies are More Secur
Sometime in the middle of the last century, a researcher named Mary Ainsworth decided to study why, although most mothers and infants bonded comfortably and securely, some relationships were characterized by tension and even confusion. In order to find out why, Ainsworth developed a test considered by many to be one of the most important in the history of child developmental psychology. She called it the "Strange Situation."
What Ainsworth found through her groundbreaking testing method indicated that the way mothers and infants interacted was related to how responsive mothers were to the needs of the child. The amount of closeness between mother and child, such as when a child is carried frequently in a baby carrier, for a modern example, largely determined the quality of bonding in the relationship.
Strange Situation, Normal Reactions
The Strange Situation Ainsworth developed measured variations of babies' reactions when briefly separated from, and then reunited with their mothers. The experiment begins when a year-old infant is placed in an unfamiliar (strange) room containing toys. The mother and child are at first alone in the room. Shortly, a series of separations and reunions are initiated. The mother leaves the baby alone for a few minutes and researchers make careful observations of how the child reacts to mother's return.
Children's' reactions varied widely. Most eagerly greet their mother upon her return, however, some seem anxious or resistant and some seemed not even to notice. Based on these observations, researchers rate the quality of mother and child attachment.
Baby Carriers Foster Healthy Attachment
Some 40 years after the introduction of the Strange Situation, researchers at Columbia University devised a study to determine what effect greater physical contact between baby and parent, such as that occurring with baby carrier use, had on attachment. Their working hypothesis was that greater physical child-parent contact would result in a more secure relationship and increased parental responsiveness.
The study was designed to employ a soft baby carrier to increase physical contact between parent and child and then use Ainsworth's Strange Situation to measure the effects, if any. Just as researchers suspected, the study results indicated that there is a direct positive relationship between the early use of a soft baby carrier and greater quality of attachment and security in the parent-child relationship.