Vijay Owens Award for Lifetime Achievement in Promoting Babywearing

Jen Norton of Canberra, Australia, is the winner of the Vijay Owens Award for Lifetime Achievement in Promoting Babywearing from the nonprofit organization Babywearing International, Inc., as part of its International Babywearing Week 2009 awards program.

The term “babywearing” means carrying a baby or young child using a cloth baby carrier. Babywearing allows parents to have both hands free while carrying their children, and research indicates that this practice has numerous benefits for children.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 1986 found that 6-week-old babies carried at least three hours a day in a soft carrier cried and fussed 43 percent less than others overall, and 51 percent less in the evening hours. Another study, published in the journal Child Development in 1990, found that mothers who were given cloth carriers at birth were more responsive to their babies and had babies who were more securely attached than mothers who received plastic infant seats.

“International Babywearing Week is a wonderful time to recognize the advocates who are helping parents learn about and become successful at babywearing,” explained Susie Spence, president of Babywearing International, Inc., the nonprofit organization that coordinates the event.

Ms. Norton, along with her husband, Denby Angus, founded the website www.TheBabywearer.com in 2003. Ms. Norton was motivated to create the website by her frustration with the difficulties in finding information about the available baby carriers, how good they were, and how to use them. The website features articles about babywearing, consumer reviews of baby carriers, and very active discussion forums.

“The significance of TheBabywearer.com to the well-being of families around the world really cannot be overstated,” Spence said. “Babywearing has so many benefits for families that once people become successful at it, they easily develop a passion for it,” she said. “But becoming successful is the necessary first step, and that is where the website comes in. It has the information that people need, presented from a consumer’s point of view rather than a seller’s point of view.”

“Many people who learn to carry their babies successfully on TheBabywearer.com go on to channel their passion for babywearing into babywearing advocacy and education,” Spence said. “A lot of nonprofit, volunteer-run babywearing clubs have grown out of the discussion forums on TheBabywearer.com,” she said. “Indeed, I don’t think there would be an organization such as Babywearing International if it weren’t for TheBabywearer.com.”

The website has also spawned a series of volunteer-run international babywearing conferences. The website does not sponsor the conferences; rather, the demand for conferences arose in its discussion forums, and the forums were a way for the volunteers to collaborate to make the conferences happen.

Now retired from ownership of TheBabywearer.com, Ms. Norton works part-time and teaches babywearing in Canberra, Australia. She has an academic research interest in the effect of babywearing on the well-being of mothers and discussed her research interest as the keynote speaker at the International Babywearing Conference in Chicago, IL, in June 2008.

International Babywearing Week 2009 was celebrated by nonprofit groups around the world. “We had Official Celebrating Organizations in fifteen countries around the world,” Spence said. The groups hosted babywearing workshops, photography exhibits, walks, picnics, and other events to raise awareness about babywearing and help parents and caregivers learn babywearing as a skill.

International Babywearing Week is supported by funding from presenting sponsor ERGObaby Inc., and general sponsors Moby Wrap, Inc., and DIDYMOS Erika Hoffmann GmbH.