I wish walkers werent banned from Canada *sigh*...I use to have one for my 15 year old when he was a baby and he loved zooming around the house in it...but oh well what can you do

baby walkers

A baby walker is a wheeled device that is designed to support an infant with feet on the floor. A walker gives the infant mobility before he or she has learned to walk.

The facts

Walkers do not help babies learn to walk and can actually lead to delays in child development.1
Placing a baby in a walker results in a significant risk for an injury. Thirty to 40 per cent of infants who use walkers will have an injury.2
Falling down a flight of stairs in a walker is the chief problem. In fact, children in walkers face a greater risk for injury due to a fall downstairs compared to other children.3
Children have suffered serious head injuries and death as a result of baby walkers.
Other injuries include fractures, drownings and poisonings. The mobility provided by the walker may give infants access to toxic household chemicals.
In Canada, there were thousands of walker-related injuries per year in the 1980s.

Are walkers still sold in Canada?

On April 7, 2004, Canada became the first country ever to ban the safe importation and advertisement of baby walkers. This ban extends to modified and second hand baby walkers. I

However, injuries are still a danger to Canadian children since some are available as hand-me-downs. It is now illegal for garage sale operators to sell baby walkers. Since they are on the banned products list, consumers can no longer purchase walkers in the United States and bring them into Canada.

In a study done in Winnipeg, 70 per cent of the walkers that resulted in injuries were hand-me-downs or purchased second hand.4 At Children?s Hospital in Winnipeg, the Emergency Department continues to see one or two infants every month with walker-related injuries.5 Other Manitoba health-care facilities are also noting walker injuries.

How can we prevent walker injuries?

If you have a walker, discard it. Please remove the wheels so that it will not place an infant at risk if someone else retrieves it.

It sucks BIG time