The African tradition of babywearing

We don't have babies that cry all the time

Many African women like prams and strollers because of their modern image. But in everyday life, mothers still carry their children in wraps. It is so much more convenient. “We have both of our hands free”, says Helen Schultheiss. She is a mother from Kenia and has experience with both European prams and African slings. Her husband works for an NGO which has led the family of four back and forth between Africa and Germany for many years. Helen is 45 and has two sons. We meet her in a top floor apartment in Erfurt, where the family has made their home for the last few years.

Like everywhere else in Africa, it is normal in Kenia for women to carry their babies at all times. Babies are carried on their backs, on their chests or on their hips. “Children need to feel their mother's warmth”, says Helen. “And I always know what's happening with him and if he needs to drink”.   She carried her two boys, now almost grown up, on her back when they were small. They never seemed too heavy. A mother's muscles adjust to the weight as the child grows. African women are used to carrying burdens, often even balancing them on their heads. Helen describes the well in her home village. Everyday the women go and fetch water: 3 kilometres to the well, 3 kilometres back. On washing days they have to bring the laundry as well, and it is heavy and wet on the trip home.

Even the babies in Africa develop a special sense of balance early one. “By being carried, the babies learn their balance early”, says Helen. To demonstrate, she bends so wide forward that her upper body is fast perpendicular. She places a large doll on her back and pulls a wrap tight around it, pulling one end of it up over her right shoulder and the around her left hip. Knotting the ends on her shoulder tightly, she stands up to show us the doll lying flat against her back. She tells us that she has never heard of a child falling down. There are many different styles of carrying the baby throughout Africa, depending on the region and the tribe, but they all use a simple basic wrap. In South Africa, where the Schultheiss family lived for several years and where their second son was born, the women tie the cloth together into a knot above their breasts. Helen prefers the security of having the wrap over one shoulder, which is the traditional way in her region.

Women in Kenia usually carry their babies from the age of a few months on until the children can walk. A few tribes carry their newborns in a wrap. Close to their mother's body, safe and cosy, the babies participate in all aspects of everyday life without always being the center of attention. Whether they are carrying water or washing laundry, grinding corn or making dinner: the little ones are always in the middle of what is going on and there are always people around them. And that is really something you notice about the babies, says Helen. “We don't have babies that cry all the time, and we don't need pacifiers to calm them down and help them sleep”.

 

 

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