Science & Technology, Canada (Commonwealth Union) – Tummy time is known to be crucial for babies as it helps to strengthen their neck, back, and shoulder muscles, which are necessary for many developmental milestones such as rolling over, crawling, and eventually walking. When babies spend time on their stomachs, they learn to lift their heads and eventually push themselves up with their arms, which builds the muscles necessary for these skills.
In addition to building muscle strength, tummy time also helps prevent flat spots from forming on the back of a baby’s head. This is because when babies spend too much time on their backs, the weight of their head can cause a flat spot to develop. By encouraging tummy time, parents can help their babies avoid this issue.
A new study has further verified the significance of tummy time that has revealed that babies getting the recommended amounts of tummy time, reading time and sleep in their 1st 6 months hit gross motor milestones quicker forming a foundation of healthy habits to gather up in the years ahead.
“The development that happens in those first few years sets the stage for health and well-being throughout life, so it’s a really critical period of development,” explained Valerie Carson, 1st author on the study and professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation.
The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines consist of recommendations for infants that include: a minimum of 30 minutes per day of tummy time, less than an hour at a time of being restrained in devices like car seats, no screen time, regular reading time and enough sleep.
Researchers discovered that adhering to as many of the recommendations as possible will have a positive outcome not just for the gross motor development of the child, but for their long-term development of healthy habits as well.
“There’s more and more evidence that the behaviours formed at this young age can become habitual and track over time,” said Carson. “The habits and the patterns we’re establishing in children at a young age might predispose them to behave in a certain way as they get older.”
The research was a component of the Early Movers, a research project formed to look into a gap in knowledge that Carson witnessed as she was co-leading the formation of the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years back in 2017. In spite of the guidelines being targeted for children up to 4 years old, Carson had observed that there was minor evidence on infants, and a majority of the present evidence had its attention on health outcomes linked to obesity.
“I was interested in looking more into other health indicators around development, things like gross motor development and social, emotional and cognitive development,” said Carson.
The research saw 411 infants recruited at 2-month immunization appointments in collaboration with Alberta Health Services. Parents had been requested to answer a questionnaire with the relevant details when their child was 2, 4 and 6 months old. They were further requested to report the dates the child reached 6 major milestones, which were the independent sitting, crawling on hands and knees, assisted standing, assisted walking, independent standing as well as independent walking.
The researchers had put together this main study with a sub-study in which some of the parents of the participants completed time-use diaries at the same 2-, 4- and 6-month intervals. A physiotherapist evaluated the participating infants’ gross motor development at 6 months as well.
The findings demonstrated that infants who fulfilled a particular recommendation at 2 months had between 1.8- and 8.2-times increased likelihood to have that same recommendation at 4 and 6 months.
