• Contact us
• About us
• A-Z topics
• Symptom Checker
• Service Finder
• Linking to us
• Information partners
• Terms of use
• Privacy

Pregnancy, Birth and Baby is funded by the Australian Government and operated by Healthdirect Australia.

Pregnancy, Birth and Baby is provided on behalf of the Department of Health

Pregnancy, Birth and Baby’s information and advice are developed and managed within a rigorous clinical governance framework. This website is certified by the Health On The Net (HON) foundation, the standard for trustworthy health information.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

This information is for your general information and use only and is not intended to be used as medical advice and should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any medical condition, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes.

The information is not a substitute for independent professional advice and should not be used as an alternative to professional health care. If you have a particular medical problem, please consult a healthcare professional.

Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, this publication or any part of it may not be reproduced, altered, adapted, stored and/or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Healthdirect Australia.

Support this browser is being discontinued for Pregnancy, Birth and Baby

Support for this browser is being discontinued for this site

• Internet Explorer 11 and lower

We currently support Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. For more information, please visit the links below:

• Chrome by Google
• Firefox by Mozilla
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari by Apple

You are welcome to continue browsing this site with this browser. Some features, tools or interaction may not work correctly.

sling or kangaroo, which is better?

Kangaroo backpacks are popular because they are easy to put on. Manufacturers recommend using kangaroo slings even for newborns. In fact, this should not be done, the best solution is a traditional sling. But the kangaroo can not even be called a full-fledged sling. A baby carrier for children should not only be convenient and comfortable, but most importantly, safe for the baby.

Let's look into all the features of the two types of carriers, determine the differences between a sling and a kangaroo. We also include an ergonomic backpack among the first ones.

1.

Baby carriers can be used infrequently and for a short time, such carriers are suitable for relatively light children ( weighing up to 8 kg ). This is due to the fact that kangaroo unevenly distributes the mass of the baby over the body of an adult due to narrow straps, lack of additional support in the lumbar region or its inferior imitation. A baby in a kangaroo is literally suspended from the crotch. The adult's center of gravity shifts, the mother has to strain her back to maintain her balance. At the same time, the weight of the child falls on her shoulders, and the narrow straps press and rub the skin.

The sling can be used from birth up to 2-3 years old, with older babies whose weight has reached 16-25 kg . The sling evenly distributes the baby's body weight over the back and shoulders of an adult, the baby is well attracted to the mother with the help of the sling, so that a single center of gravity is formed. The sling panels spread over the shoulders and back do not press and do not cut into the body due to the larger area, in comparison with a kangaroo backpack. Thanks to this, the weight of even a heavy baby is almost imperceptible.

2. Physiological position of the child's legs

In a kangaroo, the legs are located unphysiologically : the main load falls on the baby's perineum. This is fraught with additional stress on the hip joints, which interferes with their proper development.

In an older child, dangling legs, among other things, also interfere with the mother while walking and cause concern for the baby himself (therefore, it is difficult and uncomfortable to carry more than 9 kg in a kangaroo for both an adult and a child).

In the sling, the baby's legs are positioned physiologically orthopedically correct. The immature hip joints of an infant should be bent at the knees and set apart to a comfortable angle for the child. This position is not only convenient when worn both in a sling and on the hands, but also serves as a prevention of hip dysplasia.

3. The "facing the world" position is harmful to the child and uncomfortable for the parent

The ability to carry the child in a "forward facing" kangaroo is often the main reason for choosing these carriers. However, this situation is not justified for children under 3-4 months old (at this age, the baby is not able to focus on objects far away, maximum 20-30 cm from his face) and is difficult to apply in practice after 5-6 months, when the child is already enough heavy - wearing it "facing the world" is noticeably more difficult than "facing mother".

Among other things, this position is not recommended by psychologists , because in this case the child's nervous system is overloaded with an unnecessary flow of information. Not to mention the fact that it is impossible for a child to sleep, and children sleep a lot in the first months of life.

In the mother-facing sling, the child has excellent visibility to the sides, but he can always hide on his mother's chest and sleep. And after 3 months. it can be worn on the hip and behind the back - a great alternative for active and inquisitive kids.

4. Easy to put on

The speed and ease of putting on the kangaroo backpack is really just apparent, because in addition to throwing it over your shoulders, you need to adjust all the straps and buckles. On average, the donning time is about 1 minute.

Ergonomic rucksack slips on as quickly as a kangaroo. Mastering the sling scarf is much easier than it seems, it takes about 1.5 minutes to wrap even for inexperienced slings. My-sling is a great alternative to a scarf for those mothers who are afraid of windings.

Wrapping up

Each difference between a baby carrier and a sling may not seem so significant, but together they form a set of qualities that make smart parents refuse carriers that are not recommended by professionals for newborns.

Sling outperforms baby carriers in a number of ways. This carrier is:

• more comfortable for baby and mother,
• physiological,
• safe.

Different baby carriers may differ from each other, some models have the possibility of expanding the back, but even in them the child's legs are located at most with the letter "P", not "M". And various hard helmets and pendants are simply dangerous for the baby!

Request a free consultation on choosing a sling for your baby!

Russian scientists have found out why mothers hold their babies on the left

Why mothers almost always hold their babies on the left and why kangaroos, whales and horses behave in a similar way, Egor Malashichev, Associate Professor of St Petersburg University, a participant in a unique study of the behavior of mammals, told Gazeta.Ru.

— How and when did you decide to study the peculiarities of the relative position of mother and cubs in the animal kingdom?

— Eight years ago, I suggested to student Karina Karenina to defend her master's thesis on white whales — to see which side of the mother their cubs swim, assuming that they should swim to the right.

— And why did you assume so?

— The fact is that the brain of mammals, and indeed of vertebrates in general, is arranged asymmetrically, different hemispheres work differently. It has long been known that the right hemisphere is more responsible for various social functions. There were works in which it was shown that fish usually attach themselves to a flock on the right in order to look at individuals of their own species with their left eye. In mammals, no one has studied such features. The only thing is that a clearly expressed asymmetry was noticed in a person when the mother carried the child on the left side.

An ancient right-hander was found in the teeth

The first right-handed people appeared among the ancestors of people almost 2 million years ago. Archaeologists figured it out from scratches on...

October 22 14:50

Many articles are devoted to this fact, it finds confirmation even in the analysis of icons.

Moreover, to explain this, about ten hypotheses were put forward: that the child feels a heartbeat and calms down, or that the mother is right-handed and therefore keeps her right hand free . .. By the way, the last hypothesis was the easiest to refute - it turned out that left-handers also hold children to the left, like right-handed. We were interested in a hypothesis published in the Lancet at 1986 year. Scientists have suggested that we are talking about eye communication: the right hemisphere of the mother through the left eye communicates with the right hemisphere of the child. Indeed, when a mother bends over a child, she sees more with her left eye than with her right, because her nose gets in the way.

Accordingly, mother and child look at each other more often with their left eyes than with their right ones, and communicate with their right hemispheres.

— And you decided to test this hypothesis on other animals?

Yes. We took mammals in which the eyes are located laterally, that is, they look strictly to the side, and you can always say that the cub is to the right or left of the mother. Then the error is minimal, especially when you consider that the foal or calf swims or runs a little behind the mother.

And secondly, the young of the selected animals must follow their mother, and one can always determine their position, that is, they actively choose one side or the other. In general, most mammals that swim or run in open spaces meet these criteria.

First we studied one species of whales, then another, then we studied ungulates, accumulated information year after year and came to the conclusion that at least 11 species of animals from different orders (walruses, horses, reindeer, saigas, musk oxen, beluga , killer whales, southern right whales, as well as two species of kangaroos) the same thing is observed - the cub always runs to the right.

close

100%

— How large was the experimental sample?

- There were two different types of observations. In the first, different pairs of mother and calf were recorded - when one, second, third pair passes by the observers once. In the second, animals were observed that can be distinguished by some signs, and we collected statistics on individual pairs. We studied 175 individual pairs of all species, and we encountered about 10,000 pairs that we met once, about a thousand observations on different animals.

But even this statistic could not be collected, since the asymmetry turned out to be so pronounced that any statistical criterion gave a positive value: the calf is on the right in 90 percent or more of the cases.

Walruses play Angry Birds

Scientists have described for the first time how bored walruses play with live birds. Playing, walruses throw up, drown and...

05 January 16:12

Among beluga whales, we saw only one pair, in which the cub always swam not to the right, but to the left.

— And who builds mutual arrangement in a couple?

- We raised this question right away. It soon became clear that in a calm state, the position is determined by the cub. He tries to keep to the right, and if the female turns around sharply, then, for example, the calf dives and rebuilds to the other side. When we studied killer whales in Kamchatka, we noticed the following: if a boat swims up to a group of killer whales, they rearrange themselves and the observed asymmetry mixes up. If the distance to the boat is more than 100 m, then statistically there is asymmetry. If you come closer, it disappears, and if you come very close, then there is asymmetry again, but the opposite. And then we realized what was happening.

In a calm state, the female does not care about where the cub is, he follows her himself. When a boat approaches, the female moves to the right side to look at the cub with her left eye, takes responsibility for his fate and watches him. In other species, we also saw that in stressful situations, when the female runs away, she rearranges herself to the right.

The right hemisphere of animals recognizes images and works faster - perhaps this is the key point.

It may not recognize them very accurately, but quickly. The left can very scrupulously "consider" objects and images, but slowly. Therefore, the system "left eye - right hemisphere" is effective for this kind of interaction between animals.

Why does all this need to be seen? This helps him survive in nature - the cubs do not get lost and have a clearer connection with their mother.

Boy from the side, girl from the front

The manifestation of secondary sexual characteristics (the color of plumage and the size of the individual) in birds is caused by the difference between male and ...

March 11 11:26

We proved that if the cub is on the right, it is less likely to get lost and find it faster.

- What parallels did you draw with people whose mother holds the child on the left?

— We found that in baby animals the left eye and the right hemisphere are leading in choosing how to look at the mother. In case of danger, the mother has the same asymmetry: she controls the child with her left eye, analyzing information with her right hemisphere. Man is a mammal.

Learn more

• 
  Foods rich in folate pregnancy
• 
  White leakage during pregnancy
• 
  Mental health for pregnant women
• 
  Preeclampsia in first trimester
• 
  How to treat chest cold in child
• 
  Red hands white spots
• 
  Preeclampsia and baby
• 
  How do ik if im pregnant
• 
  Biggest sign of pregnancy
• 
  Infant rashes with fever
• 
  How much is earned income credit per child 2023