Slinging it: Babywearing is the new, hip way for mum and baby to get around

To mark International Babywearing Week, parents share their experience of babywearing in Ireland with Emer Harrington

Pic: iStock

Martina Callanan, from Galway, knew her journey to motherhood wasn’t going to be typical when her waters broke at 29 weeks. “My son, Lughaidh, was born more than seven weeks early and weighing two bags of sugar,” she says.

Lughaidh spent his first four weeks in the NICU at University Hospital Galway, and Martina and her husband, Danny, cherished every opportunity to hold him. When they finally got to bring him home, babywearing became a natural way to maintain that closeness. “Danny and I both loved daily skin-to-skin with him in NICU, so babywearing was a lovely transition whenwe took him home with us,” says Martina.