Car Seat Safety

Well the time has come to pack up the kids and drive excessively long hours to celebrate the holidays with family. It’ll take us 28 hours to get to our destination! Believe it or not it doesn’t sound that bad to me. I have good memories of long trips as a kid. But travel has changed a lot since we were young and sprawled out everywhere in the car. The following recommendations are taken from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website (http://www.nhtsa.gov/) and The American Academy of Pediatrics website (http://www.aap.org/).

1. Everybody needs a child safety seat, booster seat, or safety belt!

2. The “best” car seat is the one that fits your child and can be installed correctly.

3. All infants should ride rear-facing until they have reached at least 1 year of age AND weigh at least 20 pounds.

4. Children age 12 and under should ride properly restrained in the back.

5. A child should stay in a booster seat until the adult seat belts fit him correctly. This is usually when the child reaches about 4' 9" in height and is between 8 and 12 years of age.

6. Your child can graduate to a booster seat when she reaches the top weight or height allowed for her seat with a harness. (Her shoulders are above the harness slots and her ears have reached the top of the seat). Remember that a booster seat needs to be used with a lap and shoulder belt.

7. The car safety seat needs to be replaced if it was in a moderate or severe crash. The seat does not automatically need to be replaced if the crash was minor. A crash is considered minor if:

· The vehicle could be driven away from the crash.
· The vehicle door closest to the car safety seat was not damaged.
· No one in the vehicle was injured.
· The air bags did not go off.
· You can't see any damage to the car safety seat.

8. Make sure your child is buckled into the car safety seat correctly. You need to use the correct harness slots, keep the harnesses snug and the plastic harness clip needs to be at the underarm level to hold the shoulder straps in place.

9. If you are using a seat belt to secure your seat, then you need to make sure that the seat belt is routed through the correct belt path and the seat belt is buckled tight. It’s not tight enough if you can move the seat more than an inch side to side or toward the front of the car.

* If you’re going to be flying instead of driving remember that The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend that when flying, all children until 4 years of age should be securely fastened in a car safety seat. After 4 years of age, they should be secured with the airplane seat belts. Most infant, convertible, and forward-facing seats are certified to be used on airplanes. Booster seats and travel vests are not certified to be used on airplanes.

Making sure that your kids are safe during your travel will make the trip more enjoyable. Happy travels! I’ll see you on the other side of the country!

Dr. Sheila Cason