Parents ‘shouldn’t carry babies upside-down’

A top US scientist suggests you should carry your baby upright for optimal development, in his latest book which examines child-rearing techniques in traditional Amazonian and African tribes compared to western styles. 

He suggests that practicing techniques applied in traditional tribes, which have been honed over thousands of years, such as carrying your baby the right way round and facing it forward can help shape your little one into a “confident, outgoing, bubbly young chap.”

“A forward facing child will grow to have a similar outlook on life; becoming confident and secure in its surroundings with aspirations of great adventures, a bit like that Ranulph Fiennes fellow, though you should still ensure public schooling for optimum adventuring potential.  In contrast, the recent trend towards twirling little Alfie around by his legs to get a cute YouTube video, or the unverified method of carrying babies around town upside-down  to keep them below the smog and cigarette smoke will likely just leave them dazed and disconnected from the world.”

Other observed trends included babies brought up on a diet of premium organic baby food developing naturalist and hippy tendencies and those always pushed around in bomb-proof pram enclosures becoming fearful of inner city areas and discount sportswear stores.

Since researchers cannot perform direct experiments on the outcome of varying upbringings on child development for moral and legal reasons, they rely on ‘natural experiments’, where they observe child-rearing methods across the world and correlate them with future behaviours.

He added: “We once saw an Amazonian tree climbing tribe integrating their newborn with a family of monkeys so it would be interesting to see how that one turns out.”