Pre-Medieval to Modern: Babywearing History Across Europe

This week, hope&plum brings you another babywearing history lesson. This time, we’ll focus on a place where babywearing became history far more quickly than in other parts of the world: Europe. We’ll look at the earliest babywearers in Europe, depictions of babywearing in medieval art, trace it through Europe, and see how it evolved into modern babywearing.

Babywearing in Europe, just as in the rest of the world, is likely as old as civilization itself. The Sami are the earliest ethnic group in Arctic Europe and are considered an indigenous people. “Since prehistoric times, the Sami people of Arctic Europe have lived and worked in an area that stretches over the regions now known as Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Kola Peninsula. They have inhabited the northern arctic and sub-arctic regions of Fenno-Scandinavia and Russia for at least 5,000 years” (Tromsø Arctic Reindeer, 2016). Much like many indigenous tribes in North America, the Sami used intricately decorated cradleboards made of longlasting materials. These baby carriers would stay in the same family for many generations.

“At one end of the wooden frame, wooden arches form a high ‘hood’ that protects the child's head. The cot is covered with sisna and leather covers made of light sisna are folded over the cot, which are closed with a cord passing through loops on the sides. The carrying strap has come off the foot end, and the patterned protective fabric is also loose. The cot has a thin mattress covered with striped fabric and a light brown scarf as a blanket” (Siida, 2025).

One of the earliest depictions of babywearing in art comes from the 13th century. The image below “...is from the Westminster Psalter, which was made in the year 1200 in England, with additional images added around 1250. The image features St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus across a river, who is himself carrying the world (that ball in his hand), a sling certainly would have been a great help in distributing the weight” (Wyndham, 2015).

Like many of babywearers featured in medieval art, St. Christopher was facing an exceptional circumstance. Tasked with safely carrying the baby Jesus across a river. St. Christopher grabs a sturdy piece of fabric and ties it in a traditional sling carry, a common way traditional carriers like rebozos in Mexico are tied. Of course, the artist wanted to show Jesus’s face, so he is depicted sitting more upright than he probably would have been with his whole torso turned toward the front. Good thing St. Christopher has a hand on Jesus because this would not definitely not be a safe, handsfree carry.

This was a common theme in medieval babywearing art. “Religious iconography is riddled with images of the newborn Jesus being transported in a sling, often tightly swaddled” (Wyndham, 2015). Two other depictions of Jesus being carried feature babywearing, this time with his mother Mary as the wearer as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus flee to Egypt. The first is The Flight to Egypt by the Maestro di Campli (14th Century).

Again, we have a less than realistic depiction of babywearing. “The most striking differences in how infants were carried in the Middle Ages versus today stems from the widespread practice of swaddling and the use of swaddling boards. Swaddling was believed to help the limbs grow straight and helped infants to retain heat and moisture, which promoted health and vitality based on humoral medicine. Swaddling forced the limbs to be rigid and straight by the use of linen bands wound around individual limbs, before more linen or other fabric was wrapped around the entire body… When swaddled, infants would not have been able to separate their legs or bend their knees, or move their arms. Therefore, the majority of depictions of medieval infant carriers show them being used with the infant’s legs together and straight, even when for artistic license the infant is shown nude” (Wyndham, 2015). This is why the baby’s back is so straight in the artwork above rather than curled into that nice C-shape we’d hope to see for an infant today.

Above we see another depiction of the same religious event: The Flight into Egyptfrom the Basilica di San Francesco, Lower Church by Giotto di Bondone (c. 1315-1320). Again, we see a swaddled and rigid baby Jesus in another traditional sling carry. In both paintings, baby is looking adoringly up at his mother, which is something many of us can relate to. Babywearing while riding a donkey, however, is something most of us never attempt. But what about the people who were wearing babies who didn’t have their own halo?

Before people organized into farming societies with permanent settlements, babies were worn to travel from place to place. When that was no longer necessary, farmers, gatherers, and those tending to animals wore their babies while they worked. They would choose either soft carriers probably worn on their backs to optimize their ability to work with their hands or hard carriers placed nearby to keep their babies safe. However, as different classes and the feudal system developed in medieval Europe, only the peasants would wear their own babies on a regular basis. “Such a tradition of babywearing in Europe continued through the early and middle ages, but only in the lower social layers. The upper classes did not babywear, the upper classes had wet nurses and nannies who cared for the children from birth all the way through the toddler age (and beyond), and they were the ones babwearing [sic] and nursing” (Vuletic, 2021).

Because of this, there aren’t many depictions of practical babywearing from this time since peasants were not considered important enough to be featured in art. “The fact that not many back carries are seen in medieval depictions of infant carriers, may come from low-status infants being ignored by both artists and those commissioning them. If the baby doesn’t have a point (emotional appeal, plight of the poor, the burden of motherhood, divinity) it’s not recorded” (Wyndham, 2015).

A more commonly depicted reason for babywearing was travel. “At all levels of society, infant carriers were used in Medieval Europe but only for the practical purpose of transporting infants, rather than bonding or enrichment” (Wyndham, 2015). This is starkly different from the motivation behind many modern caregivers’ babywearing. We want to feel closer to our babies and develop secure attachments. But back when most of society did not have their immediate needs met, they didn’t babywear to support their children’s development, but did so out of necessity when they had to travel, as seen in the holy depictions above and other pictures below.

This image is from the Voeux De Paon (c. 1350) and shows a woman carrying an infant in a hard carrier. The baby is swaddled as in the common practice described above and bound to a cradle that the woman balances on her neck and shoulder. This woman likely had to travel with her baby and used the cradle as a carrier. It was common for those traveling with babies to use multi-purpose carriers.

The picture above is a detail from the Romance of Alexander(14th century). “These carrying objects were not specifically infant carriers, they would have been general carrying tools for transporting items, including firewood or food” (Wyndham, 2015). The first wearer carries two smaller babies who are tightly swaddles. The second wearer seems to have older children who are held upright in a basket.

Aside from travel, most people who could afford to do so left their babies at home in medieval Europe. “Therefore, an infant in a carrier in a public place (which demonstrated that their caregiver had work to do beyond holding the baby) was associated with desperate itinerant people who had nowhere safe to keep their baby, let alone themselves” (Wyndham, 2015).

Above we see one such example. “In the 14th century Book of Hours belonging to Queen Jeanne of Navarre (1312-1349), there is a beggar portrayed in rags, begging for food with three children, one at his feet, a toddler on his shoulders with its own little begging bowl, and an infant secured in a sling under his chin, seemingly secured to his head” (Wyndham, 2015). This time the worn baby is not swaddled, but we can probably agree that we shouldn’t start wearing ring slings around our heads.

Again, above is a depiction of a family begging in public. “In the early 16th century, Lucas van Leyden created the etching entitled, Beggar with two children in a basket on his head. Again we see a form of hard-carrier, the basket, carried on the back via shoulder straps to carry young children” (Wyndham, 2015). This seems for secure than the actual head carry depicted in the previous picture. And at least there is plenty of evidence of babywearers of different genders sharing the caregiving load. Based on much surviving babywearing art, “... it seems that carrying infants was a fairly egalitarian task in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, among the kind of people (the poor) seen using infant carriers, men and women shared the work of carrying infants and children” (Wyndham, 2015). Perhaps a begging man garnered more sympathy from the public or perhaps these tasks were really just shared.

Adding to the further decline of babywearing as a common practice for most people in Europe was the invention of the stroller. “In 1733, William Kent invented the first baby stroller. The stroller was initially reserved only for the highest social strata, but was slowly beginning to enter wider use, and precisely because of its use in the upper social strata, the baby stroller started growing in popularity” (Vuletic, 2021). As more people wanted to emulate royalty, more people wanted strollers. “In Germany and Austria, cloaks were used in which babies could also be carried. Due to their impracticality and the penetration of new technologies from the north, the Hockmantel and Kindertragemantel were pushed aside by the more practical Slavic ways of carrying and using strollers, which were a symbol of the industrial revolution, wealth and the victory of the new over the old” (Božić, 2016).

But some peoples, many of whom were reluctant to assimilate to the wider western culture in other ways, continued to babywear through the 20th century. “Dalarna, a northern province in Sweden held onto traditions longer than any other part of Sweden. Interestingly, women in this culture had voting rights, ownership rights and kept their last names in marriage. They also carried their children in a ‘bog’ or ‘boeg’ – which has been carried on into the English word, ‘bag’. It was made of leather and shaped into a rounded bag with edges and straps that were cut into traditional patterns. The baby would be wrapped in something warm, then placed in the bog” (Rose, 2015).

In Serbia, babies were carried in Vlach bags.

Depicted below is a traditional baby carrier from Slovakia:

In Scotland, babies were worn in the traditional plaid. “A Plaid is simply a woven shawl, usually in Tartan. A square that was then folded in half to make a triangle piece to be used as a carrying aid. It was a multi-purpose piece of cloth, used as bedding, for picnics, for carrying children, and for keeping warm” (Hippey, 2017).

Then there were some cultures who never gave up their babywearing traditions, or at least held onto them well into the 20th century. “Modern babywearers usually call these Welsh shawls (siol fagu in Welsh). Wales seems to have the strongest cultural memory surrounding the use of nursing shawls (in Welsh, the term used for carrying in a shawl is to cwtch, pronounced kootch, which translates roughly as cuddle), although they were in common use in Ireland, Britain & Northern Europe throughout the last several centuries. It is likely that they have been in use for as long as craftspeople in these areas have been weaving wool garments. They remained more or less in use until well into the 20th century- a Scottish man I know remembers his mother carrying him in one! Shawls were the traditional & common woman's garment, it goes to say that babies would be wrapped & carried in them to keep them safe, warm & fed” (Parent's Village, 2010).

A. Emonov's photo below shows the traditional carrying in the Bulgarian Rhodope Mountains. This baby carrier is called a “tsedilka” and they used to carry firewood in it. Even today, in mountain villages, grandmothers carry their grandchildren in these baby carriers.

Nowadays, European babywearing looks a lot like babywearing in the United States and elsewhere in the western world. While there are some differing schools of thought on babywearing best practices, in both the U.S. and across Europe you will see woven waps, stretchy wraps, ring slings, meh dais, and a host of buckle carriers. Attributed to the rise in attachment parenting, more and more caregivers reach for a carrier instead of or in addition to a stroller. Much like in the United States, European babywearers and babywearing companies are facing culturally appropriative practices in the recent past and honoring traditional carriers and the people they came from. Our modern panel carriers share many qualities with the Swedish boeg, Bulgarian tsedilka,and Serbian Vlach bag, while ring slings share similarities with the Welsh siol fagu,German Hockmantel, and various medieval art depictions of traditional sling carries. As always, we can learn a lot from history.

Božić, I. (2016, August 11). Tradicionalno i moderno nošenje. Nošenje Beba (I Djece). https://nosenjebeba.com/2016/08/11/tradicionalno-i-moderno-nosenje/

Hippey, J. (2017, October 4). Using the plaid: a traditional Scottish carry. Oscha Slings. https://oschaslings.com/blogs/blog/using-the-plaid

Nursing shawl (siôl magu / siôl nyrsio). (2015, October 11). Welsh Costume / Gwisg Gymreig. https://welshhat.wordpress.com/elements-of-welsh-costumes/shawl-siol/nursing-shawl-siol-magu/

Parent's Village. (2010, August 3). Instructions for using a nursing shawl. Parent’s Village. https://parentsvillage.blogspot.com/2009/09/instructions-for-using-nursing-shawl.html

Rose, M. (2015, March 10). The cultural history of carrying babies. Marion Rose, Ph.D. Psychospiritual Parenting. https://marionrose.net/the-cultural-history-of-carrying-babies/

Siida. (2025). Komsio; ǩiõtkâm. Finna.fi. https://siida.finna.fi/Record/siida.sda-25762/Details?lng=en-gb&imgid=1

Tromsø Arctic Reindeer. (2016). Sami history & culture. TromsoArcticReindeer. https://www.tromsoarcticreindeer.com/sami-culture

Vuletic, A. (2021, January 21). History of babywearing in europe. Babywearing Belongs to Everyone. https://lenastravelingcarriers.com/2021/01/21/history-of-babywearing-in-europe/

Wyndham, A. (2015, March 27). Medieval babywearing | european infant carriers. The Baby Historian. https://thebabyhistorian.com/2015/03/27/medieval-babywearing-european-infant-carriers/