Vulnerable children feel more secure with familiar people around them. Children in a buggy have no control over how it is moved and, if it is being pushed through a crowd or an unfamiliar environment, most will be less relaxed.

Those buggies that face backwards are slanted so that the child is looking up, and he or she can see the parent. In a buggy they are down at a much lower level; animals passing them, for example, could be quite disconcerting.

While some children have outgoing personalities and enjoy looking out, for others it may be more reassuring to see their parent, rather than the excitement of the world around them – or what we assume will be exciting for them.

This research probably needs further work to test and prove its hypotheses, but it seems very helpful, like that into infant mortality. It was found that children were less likely to die if they slept on their backs, and led to the Back to Sleep campaign. The received wisdom was challenged. That’s the value of research.

Some parents will inevitably feel guilty about all sorts of things, such as going back to work or sending their child to school too early, and now this. But in some situations people could say that a child needs some stress. There is a lot more work to be done to put this research in context.

Peter Norman is senior educational psychologist at Buckinghamshire County Council