Sunday, November 11, 2012

I Heart Car Seats

Disclaimer:This post was written in the Fall of 2012. I brought it from another blog I used to keep, and some of the information may be outdated, but the sentiment is still the same!

According to the Journal of Injury Prevention (per CNN), children rear facing before 2 years old are 75%  less likely to die or be severely injured in a car accident as opposed to forward facing. I am going to say that number again: 75 percent! Furthermore, carseat.se says that out of 100 children in an accident, only 8 rear facers will be seriously injured or die. This is opposed to 40 forward facing children who will be seriously injured or die in an accident. For the record, that is a 500% increase. For illustration purposes, I made this representation of that data:


Personally, I would rather not take my chances on the wrong side of that big red line.

The two most common arguments I hear against extended rear facing are, firstly, "doesn't that put them at a greater risk of leg or hip injury?". To which I answer, "I am not sure, I do not have the statistics on that, but a broken leg or hip is much better than a broken neck. Some extended rear facing die-hards have asked, 'cast or casket?'".

The second most common question is, "Well, won't they get bored facing backwards, don't they need to be stimulated more?", to which I say, "they can be plenty stimulated while rear facing. Provide books, toys, and sing songs with them in the car". Again, to me it isn't worth the risk. I would rather Esme scream from boredom on a 13 hour car ride than take the chance of a serious injury.

The fact of the matter is rear facing is safer for everybody. You, me, my grandma, your uncle, my husband's eighth cousin once removed, everyone would be better off rear facing. However, that is not logistically possible. It is possible, however to keep toddlers rear facing. Again, the American Association of Pediatricians is a huge panel of doctors (60,000 primary care providers, surgeons, and specialists)and they say that children should be rear faced as long as possible and definitely not before 2 years old.

I will finish this blog with two things. (1) link to crash test videos comparing rear and forward facing collisions. Please, watch the strain on the neck of the child forward facing compared to the rear facing child and ask yourself which one you would rather be your child? And (2) an adorable picture of my rear facing child, which you can try and convince yourself that she is unhappy not facing forward.

Update (2015): On the night before Esme's 4th Birthday my husband and I snuck out to the driveway to flip Esme's car seat. She was around 38lbs and still under the height limit, but we felt comfortable with our choice. Here is a photo of her first forward facing drive, pardon the goofball face she has plastered on, she was just a little smug.