Carry newborns upright to help improve development, says scientist

New parents should carry their babies upright rather than push them in prams to help improve their development, according to research by an award-winning scientist.

Jared Diamond, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, said parents could learn from traditional child-rearing techniques used in societies including the rainforests of Africa to improve their children’s lives.

He said: “It would be impossible, illegal, or immoral to carry out rigorous controlled experiments on western children, in order to test outcomes of different child-rearing methods.

“But a huge variety of different methods has in effect already been tested by natural experiments: different societies have been raising their children differently for a long time, and we can see the results.

“I’ve worked with traditional New Guinea peoples for 50 years. Many other westerners have worked with other traditional societies, including the Pygmies of African rainforests, the Kung of southern African deserts, and the Piraha indians of Brazil.

“We are struck by how emotionally secure, self-confident, curious, and autonomous the members of those small-scale societies are, not only as adults but already as children.

“That’s surely the result of how they are raised as children.

“I think we can foster those admirable qualities in our own children, by emulating some hunter-gatherer child-rearing practices,” said Diamond.

In his new book, The World Until Yesterday, he says that comforting a crying baby within seconds, letting them sleep next to their parents, having lots of physical contact and carrying them upright and facing outwards can all aid their development.

He said: “Carrying your baby upright and facing forward may result in a more self-assured child.”