Baby walkers take off eh

Each time I take my baby to the doctor, a nurse runs through a slew of questions once we get into the examination room. I'm not talking about general run-of-the-mill questions an adult hears when going to the doctor like What hurts? or Would you please stop stealing our copies of Architectural Digest? These questions are more like an interrogation, the purpose of which, I fear, is to determine how my wife and I are doing as parents. If we answer enough questions correctly, our kid goes home with a sticker that says "Dr. So-and-So loves me"; if not our kid goes home with a social worker.

Sure, they always start out with the more banal questions like whether or not our baby is sleeping through the night, how many wet diapers she might have during the day and so forth, but eventually the questions get hairier. They ask things like whether or not she attends daycare, whether we have pets in the home and if so what kinds, and are there firearms in the home. This last one gets me because although a swimming pool poses a far greater risk of death than a firearm, we've yet to be asked whether or not we have a pool.

On this last visit we were asked a new question though, i.e. whether or not our daughter uses a baby walker. She doesn't, but the question threw me for a loop nonetheless. I remember babywalkers, not from my own use of them, but when I worked at the world's biggest toy store in my youth we sold them. It was basically a suspended vinyl seat with a plastic tray in front that rolled around as baby was learning to walk. The more upscale versions had little spinny things on the tray to keep baby entertained during those long stretches when he got stuck on an unwielding carpet strip or kitty's tail. After only a week's worth of use, the tray bore stains from upturned sippy cups and the seat was encrusted with secondhand Cheerios. Ah, the joys of babyhood.

When we got home that day (yes, apparently we answered enough questions correctly to take our kid home unescorted once again) I started looking up the straight dope on baby walkers. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics states very clearly on their site "Throw away your baby walker."

When I ran across something that suggested they were now illegal in Canada, I looked that up too. Sure enough, according to the official website for Toronto, our neighbors to the north are advised they cannot buy, sell or give away baby walkers. A further directive goes on to say, "If you have a baby walker, take it apart and put it in the garbage."

I suppose another option for unscrupulous Canucks would be to sneak them down across the border and sell them to American parents not in the know. Or since they're technically not illegal here in the U.S. but only discouraged, maybe shady Canadians can only sell them on the black market in their own country. Can't you just see someone peddling them out of the back of a van alongside human kidneys and U.S.-bought cigarettes? A red-coated mountie would gallop up alongside and shout, "See here, you hoser, you can't be selling those here, eh!"

I did locate an article on the Health Canada website that outlines walker restrictions in several countries. The article's written en français but I think I can translate the highlights for the benefit of the non-francophone reader.

Canada - Walkers are made illegal as of some time in 2004. You can't even bring them into the country legally.

US - Doctors advise against their use, but you can still get one off Amazon.com if you can't find it in your local baby store. The Consumer Products Safety Commission suggests walkers only be used while baby is exposed to countless hours of television viewing.

New Zealand - Walkers are legal in kiwi country but parents are advised to keep an eye on baby and make sure he sticks to clean smooth floors and avoids running into hot surfaces like stoves and barbies.

Australia - Again, still legal to sell but must have caution labels on the packaging. Aussies are encouraged to closely monitor baby's activity in a walker when playing near stairs , hot surfaces or dingos.

France - French doctors don't recommend walkers any more than American doctors do, but in a spirit of anti-American sentiment tour operators hand them out at certain tourist destinations such as the Arc de Triomphe, on top of Notre Dame and on the third level of the Eiffel Tower.

Interestingly enough, in Canadian French a baby walker is referred to as a marchette while in French French it's called a trotteur or more colloquially a youpala. Go figure.

Kazakhstan: As if these people weren't already facing enough troubles as a result of this latest Borat movie, it seems as though they also are doomed to danger due to their lackadaisical attitude toward walker safety. While I wasn't able to find any printed information about the use of walkers in Kazakhstan (not that I could read it if I did), I was able to find a photo on the innerweb that depicts a baby in the former soviet bloc country in a walker. Don't believe me? Click here.

Tonga - Sadly not in the article mentioned or anywhere else on the internet was I able to find any pertinent information on the use of baby walkers in the kingdom of Tonga. Is it any wonder their population is declining?

In light of all this, I can't see us buying Meryl a walker even if they are still legal in the United States. I suffer enough parental guilt thanks to the slew of baby guides and unsolicted advice I get from well-meaning strangers in the grocery store. I don't want to add to my burden. I'm sure she'll learn to walk one of these days, and in the meantime she'll just have to be happy sitting on the floor chewing on carinogen-filled plush toys while Daddy wrestles with the frayed Christmas tree lights.