Taking care of your heart goes beyond a healthy cardio routine and a balanced diet. It’s also about regulating your heart rate! A good resting heart rate means your heart can work at its strongest, pumping blood throughout your body. But stress and anxiety can affect this healthy resting heart rate not just for you, but your baby too.
Why babywear? Because it’s good for your heart!
Let’s talk about science for just a minute. (Trust us, it’s good.)
In 2020, a study was done to examine whether infant carrying can reduce distress associated with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) among infants and caregivers. Heart rate was measured in infants and adults in a NICU before being worn, during babywearing, and after babywearing.
Here were the results:
“Across a 30-minute period, heart rates of infants worn by parents decreased by 15 beats per minute (bpm) compared with 5.5 bpm for infants worn by an unfamiliar adult, and those of adults decreased by 7 bpm (parents) and nearly 3 bpm (unfamiliar adult).”
The implications?
“Close physical contact, by way of babywearing, may improve outcomes in infants with NAS in NICUs and possibly reduce the need for pharmacological treatment.”
Isn’t that amazing?!
There are even studies that support babywearing as a helpful solution to reducing postpartum anxiety and depression.
We love how these studies show that it isn’t just mom who needs to wear their little one for all the benefits. Dad can wear, older siblings can wear, grandparents, or other caregivers! And everyone is reaping the benefits of those cozy snuggles.
Let’s wear all the babies. It’s good for your heart (and your soul).
