Pediatricians are calling for a ban on baby walkers – a common toy that often sends infants to the emergency room for preventable injuries including concussions and soft-tissue and closed-head injuries. Not only are baby walkers dangerous, they may also impede an infant’s development. Dr. Jill Creighton is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Medical Director of Ambulatory Primary Care Pediatrics at Stony Brook Medicine. Regarding baby walkers, she says:
“Baby walkers are inherently dangerous and offer no advantage to a child developmentally. Typically parents feel that a baby will learn to walk faster if exposed to a baby walker but in fact the opposite is true! A baby needs to spend time on the ground where they will learn to sit, crawl, pull to a stand and eventually balance before they will typically learn to walk. Parents who use baby walkers may inadvertently delay a child's independent walking since if they spend more time in a walker than on the ground they may have a delay in these basic motor milestones.
A stationary baby play centers (such as exasaucers) help develop babies postural muscles as well as help children develop hand eye coordination. The only thing baby walkers do is take a child who is not ready to be mobile and increase their mobility.
Baby walkers are also associated with injury and parents cannot always child proof their house for the tip overs that can happen when a child runs into a carpet edge, a piece of furniture or encounters an un-gated stairway.
Skip the walker and increase a child's time on the ground! A child will be safer and will also be developing motor skills that lead to faster independent walking.”
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