Modern baby carriers that we see and use today are based on traditional baby carriers that have been used all around the world for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, early humans may have started making carriers from animal skins, plants and other natural materials about half a million years ago as a necessity to keep their babies safe while attending to daily life. And according to James McKenna, an anthropology professor from the University of Notre Dame who studies mother-infant relationships, these carrying devices were some of the first tools ever created.
This is why it?s so important to respect the cultures our babywearing knowledge comes from, as this ancestral practice existed long before it was popularized in the West. In fact, babywearing has often been denied to Indigenous and racialized parents and children through the process of colonization and assimilation. It was seen as ?primitive,? less culturally acceptable or somehow lesser-than, since historically, European, British and white North American mothers typically used prams and strollers to carry their infants. In the end, we should be grateful to those parents who resisted being forced to abandon their living practices and who continue to carry their children in culturally specific ways, because without them, there would be no modern babywearing.
As a babywearing educator working with new parents and baby-gear stores, I also emphasize how important it is to learn to pronounce the names of these carr...