An article on CNN talks about the relationship between the way a stroller is faced and long term stress effects. There was only one study on this subject mentioned in this article, but the first time I read it through, it seemed like there was two; the article was a little confusing. The study that was mentioned was done with 2722 parents and children, ruling out the possibility of social class biases or any other biases since it was completely random. There is a quote interjected in the article by one of the researchers who claims that their experimental study shows that when the stroller was facing the parent, there was twice as more interaction between the child and the parent; however, there was no implication that they had further evidence that proved what the article said, that parents who use a stroller in which their baby is not facing them may develop long term problems in the future and could become anxious adults. And then it goes on to say that only 20 babies were used in the experiment, so I don’t know what happened to the other 2700 babies…
In the experiment, the 20 babies were rolled in a stroller for a mile and half the trip they were facing the parent and the other half they were facing away from the parent. The study claimed that parents were more likely to talk and interact with their child when the baby was facing them than when the baby was not facing facing the parent. And because of this, they are more likely to show less signs stress. They did not say where these 20 babies came from so their social class or location or other factors, such as how much interaction with the parent do they get on a daily basis or other stress factors in the child’s life, may have effected their results. Genetics could have also been a reason in which a baby was less anxious than another. There are so many factors that could come into play in how anxious a child will grow up to be that I feel like the way a child faces in a stroller is such a minute aspect. Most strollers, sixty two percent, have forward facing seats, where the baby does not face the parent, and I do not think that anxious people are anxious because of the way they were seated in their stroller and I think the only way the researchers could have proved otherwise was if the experiment was a long term experiment, taking other stress factors and everything else that could have skewed their results into account.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/21/baby.buggies/index.html?iref=newssearch&qry=studies
