Effects of Transporting a Baby with Varied Baby Carriers on the Posture of Mother during Gait

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study was to investigate weight distribution, posture alignment, and gait parameters while a mother was transporting a baby with varied baby carriers during gait. METHODS Five mothers transported their babies with three different baby carriers(baby carrier, hipseat carrier, & hipseat) and carried babies with their arms. Ten cameras, marker sets, and forceplatforms were used to get the kinematic, force, and gait parameters. RESULTS The hipseat showed that the range of motion in the hip joint was small, the step length and stride length was short, and the gait velocity was slow. Mothers carried their babies with arms showed that lower in the trunk flexion angle, larger in the stride length, and faster in the gait velocity were than any other baby carriers. CONCLUSIONS The baby carrier is important for infant s growth and care, but there is lack of product appro-priateness, use, and scientific basis. Therefore, further study is needed to investigate varied performance with transporting a baby with baby carriers.