page_title: Baby walker
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Baby walker / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Maria Apollonia of Savoy (1594-1656)
context_page_description: A baby walker is a device that can be used by infants who cannot walk on their own to move from one place to another. Modern baby walkers are also for toddlers. The have a base made of hard plastic sitting on top of wheels and a suspended fabric seat with two leg holes. In the US, baby walkers are responsible for about 2000 injuries annually to children serious enough to require a trip to the emergency room, prompting calls from pediatricians for their outright ban.
context_section_description: Baby walkers were known as early as the 15th century in Europe. An illumination in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, a Dutch manuscript from that time, depicts the infant Jesus in a wooden baby walker.
  Go-cart was a common historical name for the wheeled version.  Other alternatives were also used.  A baby-runner was a padded wooden ring, set at the height of the baby's waist, on a pole that was fixed into the floor and ceiling.  The baby was placed inside the ring and able to move in a circle around the pole.  This prevented the baby from reaching dangerous places, such as hot ovens.
caption: Portrait of Maria Apollonia of Savoy (1594-1656)
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