Generally, babies are very curious. As they grow older, they begin exploring various tastes and their surroundings by crawling. This is where the baby walker comes in. A baby walker is a device which has wheels attached on all sides to help the baby move around even when they cannot walk on their own. As soon as the baby’s feet touch the ground, they can explore their surroundings by just dragging it wherever they want to.
Often, the walkers are bright in colours with toys, colourful lights or music, which stimulates the baby and improves their mood. As adorable as a baby may look in a walker, it can lead to some serious physical injuries which can damage their bones.
Dr Vikas Verma. Additional Professor, Paediatric Orthopaedics at King George’s Medical University often receives cases where babies get seriously injured because of the walkers. The injuries are often so grave, that it leaves the bones of their legs and sometimes hands damaged.
As per the expert, parents put their crawling kids in a baby walker. This gets the baby excited, who tries to drag the device quickly. Often, the toddlers end up going so fast that they hit the corner of a table. More often than not, there have been cases where a baby entered a kitchen in a walker, and hot milk or boiling water spilt on them. There have also been cases where the baby walker has overturned.
These can cause serious injuries to a toddler. The doctor stated that “in most cases, the child’s condition becomes more serious.” He advised that instead of giving the baby a walker, parents should let the child learn to walk by themselves. He further opined that parents put their toddlers in baby walkers as they believe this will help the baby to walk faster. But, the truth is that a toddler can only walk when they are old enough to walk. To be able to walk, a baby’s bones need to grow strong enough.
Many developed countries like Canada, have banned the use of baby walkers. As per reports, from 1990 to 2014, more than 2 lakh children under the age of 15 months were injured due to baby walkers.
