CAR SEAT SAFETY If you do one thing to keep your baby or child safe, make sure …
CAR SEAT SAFETY
If you do one thing to keep your baby or child safe, make sure it’s the use of a car seat.
Getting ready for your new arrival has taken nine months of preparation. But now you’re a parent and your whole world has changed. Your goal is to keep your baby safe and healthy. This starts when you leave the hospital with your newborn. To protect your baby whilst in a car, you will need a car seat.
Choosing a seat
Infants are especially at risk for head and spinal cord injuries because their bones and ligaments are still developing. Their heads are also proportionately larger than their necks as opposed to adults, so their structural support system is still a little wobbly. There are two types of infant car seats, each with specific requirements for proper installation. When choosing your seat, remember that your baby’s head and neck are most at risk, although it also doesn’t take much to cause injury to any other part of the infant’s body.
Rear-facing, infant-only seats
These are ideal for newborns, but can also be used as your baby grows. In fact, babies should be kept in a rear facing seat for as long as possible, but at least until they weigh13kg. Should you need to change the seat because your baby has outgrown it, keep the weight rule in mind. If you can move any strap, harness, or the entire seat itself by more than 2,5cm, you probably need to try harder to pull the seat belt a bit tighter to ensure that the straps are appropriately taut.
"More than 70 percent of car accidents are from frontal impact. If your baby is in a rear-facing seat in a crash, her body will still be thrown forward, but she will be protected by the seat that’s behind and around her"
Make sure the carrier straps are pulled tight and the harness clip is even with the baby’s shoulders or armpits. Make sure the straps are in the slot that lines up just above or closest to the infant’s shoulders.
If your baby is still a bit wobbly in the seat due to her size, place rolled receiving blankets or towels along each side. This will provide additional support and cushioning. Do not place anything under the harness straps.
Convertible seats
These are designed to grow with your child. They can be modified with each weight and age transition, allowing you to only buy one car seat. When your child tips the scales at over 9kg, the seat can be switched to face the front, but this is not recommended until she is at least 13kg.
Car safety for toddlers
During your child’s toddler phase, your car seat should still be rear-facing. Some car seats allow for the child to be rear facing until they weigh 25kg and are about five to six years of age.
These seats are generally held in by a seatbelt slipped through a hole in the back. The key is once again to ensure less than 2,5cm of movement from side to side and forward. This can be a little more difficult with the bigger car seats. To combat this, car seat engineers have added anchors and tethers for additional protection. This brings us to the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) system.
The LATCH system
If you have a vehicle manufactured after 2002, simply feel around the back seat until you find a couple of heavy metal latches. These are designed to hold the car seat in place using the anchors and tethers that come with them. This means you can hook a car seat into the back of your car without using the seat belts to do so, and your baby will be completely safe.
All the other aspects of securing the seat still apply, so make sure the harness straps are taut, and that the seat does not move about.
How to install and use the seat properly
Read your car seat and vehicle manuals to make sure you understand how to properly install the car seat you have, as each one is different. Many parents simply do not follow the manufacturer’s guidelines, which completely renders any seat unsafe.
If you’re installing a forward-facing seat (for an older toddler), make sure it’s flat against the seat’s bottom and back. Be sure to check the safety seat’s instructions for the recommended angle of recline (this goes for rear-facing seats too). Use your hands to push down as hard as you can on the car seat – or better yet, place your knee on the car seat and push down with all your weight to squash the air out of the cushion underneath it.
It’s best to install the car seat on the back seat of your car, but if you’re installing a rear-facing seat in the front passenger seat of your car make sure the airbag function has been switched off. You can do this safely by taking your car to the manufacturer and asking them to do it for you.
If you’re not using a LATCH system to install the seat, make sure the car’s seat belt is threaded through the correct slots, and pull the belt as tight as possible so there’s no slack. The car seat should move no more than 2,5cm forward and backward or side-to-side on the belt path once it is installed.
Once you’ve buckled the belt, pull on it to make sure it’s locked properly.
If the seat moves, you’ll need to secure it with a locking clip, a small metal device that looks like an oversized paper clip. The locking clip fits around the seat belt to hold the belt firmly in place. Check to make sure the seat is secure and resists side-to-side motion. If you can still tip the car seat forward or sideways more than 2,5cm, unbuckle it and try again until you get a tight fit.
Be sure you know how the harness system works. You can tighten and loosen the straps around your baby with the harness adjustment lever. Adjust the harness to make the belts snug. It’s too loose if you can pinch any of the material between your fingers.
The straps should always lie flat. Straighten them out if they become twisted, which happens easily.
If your baby’s head flops forward, make the seat more level by wedging a folded towel or other firm support under the front of it (usually between 30 and 45 degrees) to keep your baby’s head resting back comfortably.
Booster seat
Once your child has completely outgrown the bigger car seat, it needs to be replaced with a booster seat. The regular kind of booster seat looks like a mobile cushion you would take to a cricket match. It helps prop a child to a better height so that a standard seat belt rests in the correct place across her body.
Another type of booster seat comes with a high back. It looks like a cockpit seat on an aeroplane. Booster seats can be strapped in like a car seat, and come with a harnessing system so you don’t need to worry about head damage from the seatbelt in the event of an accident.
What happens during a crash?
During a motor vehicle crash, a car occupant who isn’t wearing a seat belt will continue to move at the same speed at which the vehicle was travelling before the collision and will be catapulted forward into the structure of the vehicle. Alternatively, the person can be ejected from the vehicle completely. Being ejected from a vehicle drastically increases the probability of sustaining severe injuries or death.
The use of seat belts and child restraints is one of the most important actions that can be taken to prevent injury during a motor vehicle crash. While seat belts and child restraints do not prevent vehicle accidents, they play a major role in reducing the severity of injury to occupants involved in a collision.
Seat belt safety
Seat belts are made for adults and are not appropriate for children’s small sizes. Your child should stay in a booster seat until an adult seat belt fit her correctly (usually between eight and 12 years of age). Once your child is able to use a seat belt without a booster seat, they should always use lap and shoulder seat belts for optimal protection.
Airbags are designed to provide extra protection for an adult already wearing a seatbelt and are NOT designed for children. Therefore, a child should only be allowed to sit in the front seat once she is taller than 150cm, can place her feet comfortably on the ground and weigh more than 45kg. Until such time, children should be confined to the back seat for their own safety. Keep these tips in mind too:
Make sure your child does not tuck the shoulder belt under her arm or behind her back. This leaves the upper body unprotected and adds extra slack into the seat belt system, putting your child at risk of severe injury in a collision or with sudden braking.
Never allow anyone to ‘share’ seat belts. All passengers must have their own car seats and seat belts.
Using a seat belt
An adult seat belt fits correctly when:
the shoulder belt lies across the middle of the chest and shoulder, not over the neck or throat;
the lap belt is low and snug across the upper thighs, not the belly; and
your child is tall enough to sit against the vehicle seat back with her knees bent and can stay in this position comfortably throughout the trip.
Car seat safety
If you do one thing to keep your baby or child safe, make sure it’s the use of a car seat.
Getting ready for your new arrival has taken nine months of preparation. But now you’re a parent and your whole world has changed. Your goal is to keep your baby safe and healthy. This starts when you leave the hospital with your newborn. To protect your baby whilst in a car, you will need a car seat.
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