My thanks to Diarmuid and Chris for their guest blog post about their paper, “Understanding the barriers and enablers of babywearing using the COM-B model and the theoretical domains framework“, published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly Volume 74, 1st Quarter 2026.

 Babywearing is a behaviour

While this might sound obvious, framing babywearing as a behaviour means that there’s an enormous amount of psychological theory that we can use to help us understand why people do or do not babywear. After all, a simple definition of psychology is that it is the science of mind and behaviour.

And this understanding is just the first step. Psychology is also interested in how we can influence behaviour. This might be for good (e.g., public health interventions designed to reduce smoking or increase exercise in communities) or ill (e.g., creating apps that insidiously capture our attention and encourage us to spend money).

As someone reading this blog, you probably think that babywearing is something that’s good to do – something to be encouraged. We (Chris Brown and Diarmuid Verrier) think so too. When they were younger, we both carried our respective children around in slings: up and down stairs, when out shopping, to nursery and back, etc. We are also, both, psychologists.

So, we decided to look into the factors that might lead to someone being more or less likely to babywear. There are many frameworks and theories that we could have used to structure our research, but we liked the COM-B model.

The COM-B model, developed by Susan Michie, Maartje van Stralen, and Robert West in 2011, originated within the field of Health Psychology. It was designed to help think about the causes of health-related behaviour, and consequently, the factors that someone looking to change such behaviours should be targeting.

  • C stands for Capability, that is, whether someone has the physical capacity or the knowledge/skills/ability to engage in the behaviour.
  • O stands for Opportunity, that is, whether the social and physical environment that someone is in makes it easier/harder to engage in the behaviour.
  • M stand for Motivation, that is, whether engaging in the behaviour is something that people actively want to do, either because it aligns with their identity or goals or because it’s pleasant.
  • …and B stands for Behaviour, which is the outcome influenced by all of the above. If you feel capable, you have the opportunity, and you’re motivated, then you are more likely to engage in the behaviour.

For our study we interviewed 17 mothers who were (or had been) babywearing. Throughout the study – from coming up with the initial idea, to coming up with the questions, to sourcing participants, to checking our analyses – we engaged with other members of the community (all mothers) to make sure our research was authentically reflecting the concerns and experiences of babywearers.

We asked people questions around how they first got into babywearing, why they liked it (or not), and whether there were things that made it easier or harder to babywear compared to, for example, using a pram. We then used the COM-B as a framework for analysing the data we got from the interviews.

People reported an enormous array of behavioural influences, which varied over time – from their initial awareness of babywearing (even before giving birth), to their initial experiments with getting their child into a sling, to their ongoing babywearing journey as their child got bigger (and bigger). There are too many to list them all, but some examples include:

  • Capability: knowing about slings in the first place, and knowing how to use them properly; having the physical strength to use them and finding them comfortable
  • Opportunity: having babywearers in your social circle, having access to slings, having access to social and informational support; having the money to buy a sling and the time needed to learn how to use it; the size of the child
  • Motivation: feeling fashionable; feeling like it’s good for the child’s development and good for attachment; feeling that it’s convenient and enables activities (like hiking); getting positive responses from the child; feeling cosy and connected

And there’s a feedback loop, where engaging in the behaviour in the first place reinforces all of the above. If you start to sling, you meet other slingers, and you then have access to more social support, etc…

Where people reported ambivalence about babywearing, it was often because some of the above weren’t in place. Maybe the cognitive fog that comes after pregnancy made it difficult to think about learning a new skill (carrying); or there were people in the mother’s social circle who were critical; or there was physical discomfort from slinging (possibly due to pre-existing health conditions); or using a sling was simply less convenient than using a pram.

So, what does this mean for someone who is a fan of babywearing and wants to support babywearing behaviour in others?

Here are a few tips:

  • Make sure they have access to a sling. Lend them an old one, or bring them to a sling library so they can borrow one.
  • Help them feel confident in using them. You can provide advice yourself, or link to videos, or, again, bring them to a sling library for expert guidance
  • Create opportunities for them to use them. For example, organising a shared walk or shopping trip where they get to use their carrier.
  • Model wearing your own child. This lets them see how it’s done, but it can also demonstrate the value it adds to your life, and the benefits it has for you and your child.

If you want to read the full research article this post was based on, you can find it here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2025.10.008