# Warning: Car Seat Danger for infants



## Devaskyla (Oct 5, 2003)

Just saw this & thought it was important to post about it. Link may be upsetting, so I've posted the 2 most important bits.

http://www.medbroadcast.com/channel_..._id=1044&rot=3

Quote:

A Quebec coroner says putting infants in car seats so they can sleep can present serious breathing problems and should be discouraged.

Quote:

Quebec public health officials also recommend frequent stops during travel as infants should never spend more than an hour in a seat at a time.


----------



## homebirthbaby (Aug 10, 2006)

Quote:

Quebec public health officials also recommend frequent stops during travel as infants should never spend more than an hour in a seat at a time.
If the car seat is installed with the correct recline angle (45 degrees for a newborn), I don't see why this would be dangerous.


----------



## Sarah W (Feb 9, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *homebirthbaby* 
If the car seat is installed with the correct recline angle (45 degrees for a newborn), I don't see why this would be dangerous.

I would never have known it would be a problem. However, we had to evacuate to Orlando this past summer and DD was 12 days old. It's a 7+ hr drive and we ended up stopping pretty frequently. Her poor little head would flop over, even though she was reclined. They just don't lean back quite far enough.


----------



## syd'smom (Sep 23, 2008)

I remember this story from a while back. I think it has to do with the fact that the proper recline is for head/neck/spine safety in the event of a crash; however, it also causes a more vertical angle where a sleeping baby (with little head control) can actually obstruct his/her airway because the head is tilted slightly forward, as opposed to a more reclined back position recommended for sleeping.


----------



## KatWrangler (Mar 21, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Sarah W* 
I would never have known it would be a problem. However, we had to evacuate to Orlando this past summer and DD was 12 days old. It's a 7+ hr drive and we ended up stopping pretty frequently. Her poor little head would flop over, even though she was reclined. They just don't lean back quite far enough.

So she wasn't in a bucket seat?


----------



## 3pink1blue (Jun 23, 2008)

yes, and just because your bucket seat level indicator says it fine, have it checked! Ours said it was level and it was FAR too upright. No wonder DD screamed in it all the time.







of course, i found this out as i was getting the new car seat installed. Wish I'd have known before. Thank God we were never in an accident.


----------



## Anna's Lovey (Dec 24, 2008)

can you tell me how to get to the article? I clicked on the link but couldn't find it
thanks


----------



## Devaskyla (Oct 5, 2003)

Weird, it was a direct link. I couldn't find it on that site again, but here it is somewhere else. http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National...71796-sun.html


----------



## JavaJunkie (Jan 16, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *3pink1blue* 
yes, and just because your bucket seat level indicator says it fine, have it checked! Ours said it was level and it was FAR too upright. No wonder DD screamed in it all the time.







of course, i found this out as i was getting the new car seat installed. Wish I'd have known before. Thank God we were never in an accident.

After I read this post, it made me wonder about the installation of my dd's SnugRide. I reinstalled it with a tightly rolled towel to level the base better. The carseat is still showing that it is level on the indicator, AND my baby immediately started doing better on car trips. Her little head didn't slump over anymore when she fell asleep, either. Thanks for posting this!


----------



## Cinder (Feb 4, 2003)

This is the reason why they make preemies do carseat checks before they discharge them. The angle of the seat is safest to protect your kid in a crash, not the best angle for them to breath properly. Babies should not be left in their seats for long periods of time with no break, unless you have another medical reason, like severe reflux, and have been directed by your doctor to have them sleep there to prevent apnea from the reflux.


----------



## VroomieMama (Oct 9, 2008)

Thank you for the article! Something for me to consider with my two girls due in June.


----------



## Delicateflower (Feb 1, 2009)

Even in a perfectly installed baby bucket this is an issue, it's not because the seat's badly installed, it's because the seat is designed to be safe in an accident, not as a bed.

Quote:

"Babies are not shaped like little adults," says Professor Alistair Gunn of the University's Departments of Physiology and Paediatrics. "Young babies have relatively much bigger heads than adults and they stick out behind the line of the back. At the same time they have very short necks so that their chins are almost on their chests, and their muscles are less well developed. Because standard infant car seats have flat backs, when an infant is properly strapped in place, the flat back of the seat pushes on the back of the head, which is bent forward, so that the chin is pressed against the chest. Because babies have very mobile jaws, the chin is easily pushed backward, with tongue inside it constricting the airway."

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatri...ediatrics/4667


----------



## cschick (Aug 28, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *KatWrangler* 
So she wasn't in a bucket seat?

My son was in a bucket seat, installed and checked by a car seat tech, and probably for the first 8 weeks of his life, his head would flop forward.


----------



## thepeach80 (Mar 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *cschick* 
My son was in a bucket seat, installed and checked by a car seat tech, and probably for the first 8 weeks of his life, his head would flop forward.

Then IMO it wasn't installed correctly. Was your child there when you got the seat checked?


----------



## Novella (Nov 8, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Delicateflower* 
Even in a perfectly installed baby bucket this is an issue, it's not because the seat's badly installed, it's because the seat is designed to be safe in an accident, not as a bed.









Yep! That's why it's not recommended to carry your baby everywhere in the car seat: into the car, out and snapped onto the stroller. . . and so on


----------



## an_aurora (Jun 2, 2006)

The reason it's a danger to newborns' breathing is that some babies have a hard time going from being upside down in mama to being at a 45* angle in the car. For these babies, spending long periods of time in the car seat can cause their O2 sats to lower. At the hospital where I work, we do an angle tolerance test on all babies under 7 lbs at birth and all babies leaving the NICU.


----------



## Ks Mama (Aug 22, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *an_aurora* 
The reason it's a danger to newborns' breathing is that some babies have a hard time going from being upside down in mama to being at a 45* angle in the car. For these babies, spending long periods of time in the car seat can cause their O2 sats to lower. At the hospital where I work, we do an angle tolerance test on all babies under 7 lbs at birth and all babies leaving the NICU.

You can waive that test. I did with my 36 week 6 lb son. I didn't feel comfortable being separated from him for an hour while he was hooked up to monitors checking to see if he would get sick. It wasn't my plan to keep him in the seat any longer than absolutely necessary (like from hospital to home).

He never slept in the carseat like my DD did (it was one of the only places she WOULD sleep, and she never had any breathing issues while in the seat.... maybe its because she - and her brother - were both perisitantly breech? it's a thought anyway).


----------



## an_aurora (Jun 2, 2006)

They don't separate you from your baby here unless you request it


----------



## Viola (Feb 1, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *3pink1blue* 
yes, and just because your bucket seat level indicator says it fine, have it checked!

Yeah, I think as Syd'smom said, the safest angle in a crash and the safest angle for sleeping are two different things. I was not happy with the fact that my child's head was flopping forward, so I used the carseat out of the base, making sure to get it tightly fit into the car cushion, and it felt much more secure that way. But I didn't make the angle as upright as the base would have.


----------



## Ks Mama (Aug 22, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *an_aurora* 
They don't separate you from your baby here unless you request it









Yeah... birth culture in NJ is not exactly baby or mom friendly, to put it mildly.


----------

