Every
milestone in a child’s life is exciting!
First steps, first word, first day of school. Even car seat milestones seem exciting, but the truth is,
they should be looked at with a certain sense of dread, not longing.
Every step in car seat “advancement” is actually demoting the
protection your child receives.
Many parents have the misconception that children are
uncomfortable or at risk for leg injury by having their legs up on the
vehicle seat or bent when kept rear-facing.
These concepts are completely incorrect. First, children are more flexible than adults so what we
perceive as uncomfortable is not so much so for the children. Second, there is not a single documented case of children’s
legs, hip, etc. breaking in a crash due to longer rear-facing.
Even if a leg were broken, it can easily be fixed.
A damaged spinal cord (from forward-facing too soon) cannot be
repaired and subjects the child to lifelong disability or death.
Any expert will tell you that rear-facing is
DEFINITELY safer. The
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that
rear-facing seats are 71% safer than nothing and forward-facing seats
are 54% safer than nothing.
Other experts say that “Crash studies have shown that, in a front-end
collision, injury rate is reduced by 30-60% if a passenger is
rear-facing rather than front-facing.”
Child safety seats:
Rear-face until at least one year discusses the reasons why
children should remain rear-facing for a FULL year and 20 pounds.
In it, Kathleen Weber states “In the research and accident review
that I did a few years ago, the data seemed to break at about 12 months
between severe consequences and more moderate consequences…”
This does not mean that there are NO consequences.
The consequences may no longer be death from a completely severed
spinal cord, but simply life-long injury, including complete paralysis.
Research studies suggest that until children are at least four,
they are incapable of withstanding crash forces as well as adults – and
should remain rear-facing.
In a crash, life-threatening or fatal injuries are
generally limited to the head and neck, assuming a child is in a
harnessed seat.
In a forward-facing seat, there is tremendous stress
put on the child’s neck, which must hold the large head back.
The mass of the head of a small child is about 25% of the body
mass whereas the mass of the adult head is only 6%.
A small child’s neck sustains massive amounts of force in a
crash. The body is held back by
the straps, while the head is thrown forward, stressing, stretching or
even breaking the spinal cord.
The child’s head is at greater risk in a forward-facing seat as
well. In a crash, the head
is thrown outside the confines of the seat and can make dangerous
contact with other occupants, vehicle structures, and even intruding
objects, like trees or other vehicles.
Rear-facing seats do a phenomenal job of protecting
children because there is little or no force applied to the vulnerable
areas. In a rear-facing
seat, the head, neck and spine are all kept fully aligned and the child
is allowed to “ride down” the crash while the back of the restraint
absorbs the bulk of the crash force.
The head is contained within the constraint, and the child is
much less likely to come into contact with anything that might cause
head injury.
