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o Pros: Walkers can provide a great deal of entertainment for baby. Just imagine the freedom baby feels from becoming mobile for the first time. With the help of the walker’s wheels, baby can scoot himself over to mom in the kitchen or to the dog in the living room – the world is his to conquer! Additionally, most walkers come with attached toys for additional entertainment when baby gets tired of scooting from room to room.

o Cons: Unfortunately, walkers have more cons than pros, making them a very risky purchase for parents. One of the drawbacks is that parents may believe that walkers can help baby walk independently sooner. This is not the case. Studies show that walkers do not help baby start to walk at an earlier age. In fact, spending too much time in a walker can strain baby’s leg muscles and cause pain. But even more importantly, walkers are unsafe. Since baby becomes mobile in the walker, this opens the door for baby to bump into things, knock things off of furniture and reach for things he is not supposed to. This becomes very dangerous if baby knocks hot coffee off of the table onto himself, or actually knocks over the piece of furniture he bumped into. Baby can also easily get burned. Babies can reach up higher since they are standing inside the walker and possibly reach for a radiator, into a fireplace or into a space heater. Babies can drown from falling into a pool, bathtub or toilet while in the walker. If your poisonous chemicals are in an available cabinet or on the countertop, baby may be able to reach them while in the walker and poison himself. Despite all of these dangers, most serious injuries from walkers occur when babies fall down the stairs while caught in the walker.

14,000 babies go to the hospital each year from various baby walker injuries, and 34 children have died since 1973 from accidents inside baby walkers. The concern has risen so greatly that the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for a ban on the manufacture and sale of these baby walkers, yet their attempts have not been successful in the United States. The Canadian government has succeeded in making it illegal to sell, advertise or import baby walkers into their country. Since the US government has not gone to these lengths yet, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has started requiring new safety standards in an attempt to make walkers safer for children.

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