Car Seats and Safety

As I just posted, we recently moved Asher to a forward-facing car seat. I was going to mention in that post about the danger I learned, of turning babies to forward facing at the standard, accepted age of 1. But I know that most parents find it so much easier to travel with their children forward facing and there has not been a lot of information out about rear-facing vs forward-facing for children over one, so I decided not to mention it.

I personally was convicted of the danger when I read an article months and months ago that talked about the danger of internal decapitation to young children because their bodies can't handle the force of car accidents in the forward-facing position. As Moms, we can all latch onto some sort of fear or concern and be ruled by it. I have many a friend concerned about crib bumpers, introducing new foods, choking on foods, breaking legs in crib slats, etc. I didn't want to be ruled by the fear of Asher being killed in a car accident but I also felt that it seemed so horrible and possibly preventable that I was determined to keep Asher rear-facing as long as possible. As I did research I learned that in Sweden children are kept rear-facing till 4!!! And that many European countries in general have the 2yr old rule. Keeping him rear-facing meant at times that Andy or I sat in the back with him for parts of car trips to help keep him occupied. (Having moved him forward facing now, I have learned it is no easier to keep him occupied if he wants out of the seat!) And admittedly it was not so easy to feed him snacks, entertain him, etc when it was just him and me in the car. When we finally turned him, both Andy and I had a reservation about it since he is still on the small side and he didn't mind being rear-facing. We both felt like at 26months it was ok to turn him around, but after reading the below article, I still pause.

I decided to say something because today on the NYTimes.com there was an article on this particular issue. My pediatrician never once mentioned to me to keep Asher rear-facing until 2. I want to pass this article on to fellow Moms out there that are considering making the switch or have friends in this stage. Please consider the (slight) possible inconvenience and folded up legs and keep your precious munchkins rear-facing as long as possible! I think it it worth it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/health/policy/22carseat.html?_r=1&hp