Carry Your Baby In a Shawl!
(Page 2 of 3)
January/February 1972
By Susan Freis Ezell
Once I got the knack, Ama was very happy and comfortable in the ruana . . . and it soon seemed less like a garment than a pair of wonderfully flexible, auxiliary arms I'd sprouted to help with the baby.
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The ruana is a rectangular blanket, 4' wide by 4'8" long, fringed on the ends and split down one end to the center. Of double-woven Colombian llama wool, the ruana is practically snow, rain and wind-proof. I think it's actually a better baby-carrier than the triangular shawls used by the women of the Taos Pueblo.
When I first saw my ruana, I figured that you wore it like you wear a triangular shawl . . . with the unbroken, fringed end straight down your back, and the two split-ends even in front. But the ruana's worn a bit differently.
The unbroken, fringed end doesn't hang completely down your back, but is shifted to the right shoulder and hangs mostly down your right arm. The length of the ruana wraps around your back and the two split-ends are drawn to the front, the one coming over the left shoulder being shorter than the end coming over the right.
To carry Ama then, I pick her up facing me and sit her on my belly or left hip. I wrap the shorter left-hand split-end of the ruana around her back and tuck it up between her legs. Then I wrap the longer right-hand split-end over the other and also tuck it up between Ama's legs.
With a little adjustment Ama can sit up and peek out, sleep sitting up against my breast or even lie down. No matter what her position, only a little support and steadying with my left hand is necessary.
The unsplit fringed end, hanging down my right arm, comes in handy occasionally by providing a corner to cover the baby's face from a sudden gust of wind or rain.
Carrying Ama this way my right arm is completely free, and I've done light shopping and taken walks—even hiked up and down West Virginia hillsides so steep I had to grab branches to keep my balance—with Ama snugly tucked and perfectly safe in the ruana. Riding in a car or sitting outside, I've let these subsidiary arms hold Ama in place while she nursed or slept.
Carried in the ruana, Ama's face is right up next to mine. She feels the comfort of my body warmth and the vibrations of my speech . . . and is really intimate with the rhythms of my walking, sitting and rising. The same would be true of a commercial baby-carrier, except that—with one of those—she'd relate to the back of my head or belly button rather than my face. You can't cook dinner or plant a garden with one hand, however, so sometimes I do carry Ama in the backpack . . but neither she nor I enjoys it in the same way.
