rear facing carseats

[Kaytee]

Why would you turn your infant to forward facing before the highest weight limit on a convertable car seat?
I know so many parents that think it is some "right" or "sign of their parenting" that they forward face their infants as soon as they can. Even some before the legal limit claiming that their child is "happier" forward facing. To me it sounds like they are taking their own wants and desires above their child's saftey. What do you all think?

[Trina]

As a Child Passenger Safety Technician, I have dealt with this issue often. I inform parents of the current child restraint laws and safety recommendations and at that point it is their decision. The very bare minimum requirements for turning a baby forward facing are 12 mos. and 20 lbs.. It's actually illegal in my state (CT) to turn a baby forward facing before then. We (CPS Techs) will not let an infant leave a car seat inspection forward facing before 12 mos. and 20 lbs..

I've found most parents who turn their infants forward facing too soon simply aren't aware of the dangers. A great article:

Importance of Rear Facing

The bare minimum requirements for turning a baby forward facing are 12 mos. and 20 lbs.. Safety experts now recommend babies stay rear facing until they outgrow the rear facing limits of their convertible car seat. Rear facing better protects the head, neck and spine.

Child Safety Seats: Rear-Face Until At Least One Year

by Kathleen Weber

Common Misunderstanding
There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions about the crash environment that lead even the best-intentioned parent or pediatrician to believe a child is "safe" facing forward when s/he is still very young. These come from obsolete ideas and advice that may still appear in older pamphlets and pediatric literature but that have been updated in recent years.

The most prevalent misunderstanding is the idea that muscle strength and control have anything to do with whether it is reasonable to face a child forward and subject his/her neck to the extreme forces pulling the head away from the body in a frontal crash.

Crash Dynamics
This will be a somewhat technical explanation, but it is an important concept to understand. When a car hits something else at, say, 25 miles per hour to 30mph, it will come to a stop at a deceleration rate of about 20 or 25G. But, due to the time lag between when the vehicle stops and the occupants eventually do, the head of a forward-facing adult or child may experience as much as 60 or 70G.

Physiological Impact
Even strong neck muscles of military volunteers cannot make a difference in such an environment. Rather it is the rigidity of the bones in the neck, in combination with the connecting ligaments, that determines whether the spine will hold together and the spinal cord will remain intact within the confines of the vertebral column.

This works for adults, but very young children have immature and incompletely ossified bones that are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. Have you ever pulled an electric cord from the socket by the cord instead of the plug and broken the wires? Same problem.

This scenario is based on actual physiological measures. According to Huelke et. al. (1), "In autopsy specimens the elastic infantile vertebral bodies and ligaments allow for column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch." Real accident experience has also shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from its spine by the force of a crash. Yes, the body is being held in place, but the head is not. Is it a statistically rare event? Yes. If it's my child, does it matter that it's rare?

Facing Directions
When a child is facing rearward, the head is cradled and moves in unison with the body, so that there is little or no relative motion that might pull on the connecting neck.

Another aspect of the facing-direction issue that is often overlooked is the additional benefit a child gains in a side impact. Crash testing and field experience have both shown that the head of a child facing rearward is captured by the child restraint shell in side and frontal-oblique crashes, while that of a forward-facing child is thrown forward, around, and often outside the confines of the side wings. This can make the difference between a serious or fatal head injury and not.

Turn-Around Time
There are no magical or visible signals to tell us, parents or pediatricians when the risk of facing forward in a crash is sufficiently low to warrant the change, and, when a parent drives around for months or years without a serious crash, the positive feedback that the system they have chosen "works" is very difficult to overcome. When in doubt, however, it's always better to keep the child facing rearward.

In the research and accident review(2) that I did a few years ago, the data seemed to break at about 12 months between severe consequences and more moderate consequences for the admittedly rare events of injury to young children facing forward that we were able to identify. One year old is also a nice benchmark, and the shift to that benchmark in the last few years has kept many kids in a safer environment longer and has probably saved some lives, some kids from paralysis and some parents from terrible grief.

Leg Length
As a side comment, some convertible child restraints indicate in their instructions that a child should face forward when his/her feet touch the vehicle seatback, or alternately when the legs must be bent. This prohibition is not justified by any accident experience or any laboratory evidence, and we are hoping that these instructions will soon be revised. The only physical limit on rear-facing use is when the child's head approaches the top of the restraint shell. At this point, s/he should be moved to a rear-facing convertible restraint, or, if the child is already using one, to its forward-facing configuration.

Parents and pediatricians need to know the real reasons for the current push to keep babies rear-facing to at least one year of age, in order to be able to make an informed judgment. Perhaps this will help spread the word.

References:
(1) Huelke DF et. al. Car crashes and non-head impact cervical spine injuries in infants and children. Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, Pennsylvania, 1992. SAE 920562

(2) Weber K et. al. Investigation of dummy response and restraint configuration factors associated with upper spinal cord injury in a forward-facing child restraint. In Child Occupant Protection, SP-986. Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, Pennsylvania, 1993. SAE 933101

Kathleen Weber (retired) was the Director of the Child Passenger Protection Research Program at the University of Michigan Medical School. She is still very active in the Child Passenger Safety field.

More information concerning the importance of rear facing:
CPSafety.com

[fallon]

what do you do if your chold is weel over the limit of the car seat before they are 12 months old. I've been worrying about this lately as my son is only 6 months old and the limit on the rear facing seat says 22lbs but he's over 18lbs now? any suggestions???

[Trina]

fallon,
Is your DS now in an infant carrier car seat? The next step is a convertible car seat. Most now rear face up to 30 lbs., some to 33-35.

[WHYTEKNYGHT2003]

i believe that the safety requirements are there for a reason. therefore my future child will be wavin to the people behind us untill after theyve hit the safe limit.

[fallon]

yes he is still in his infant seat, but out growing it quickly. thank you for this info. I will check and see if our next seat can be rear facing, if not I'll get him a new one. The next seat we have I belive is a convertable, it's 4 yrs old but we never used it rear facing for dd

[Trina]

GOOD for you, WHYTEKNYGHT!

To find a Child Passenger Safety Tech. near you:
SeatCheck.org

fallon, what particular car seat is it? Keep in mind that most car seats expire 6 yrs. after the date of manufacture. If the seat you mentioned is already 4 yrs. old, although you can still use it for 2 more years, you will need to get another one before your son is old enough for a booster seat.

[fallon]

thank you you've been very helpful. I will look into that for sure

[Kaytee]

Definatly get a convertable car seat. I know mine goes to 33 lbs (It's a Britax Marathon.
Nichole was a tiny baby and didn't hit 20lbs till she was 15 months old, but she outgrew the height before the weight.
And yes we are still rear facing with no plans to change her.

[Abbi]

I wouldn't do it, I hate seeing babies forward facing too soon. I've heard people say they do it because it's easier (and the reasons vary as the child gets older), really the mind boggles. And considering we've got Bekah, the twins and Casey's niece in car seats (3 RFing) really we get how complicated it is. Still we plan to keep them RFing as long as possible.


Trina, I didn't know how long car seats lasted (knew they expired but didn't know when) thanks.