As a new mom of a two year old, I still do quite a lot of research on various products and parenting information. When it was time for us to upgrade Esa’s car seat, I wanted to choose the best. Like so many parents I was looking forward to Esa now facing forward in his new car seat and experiencing a car ride the way we do.
I even ran a poll on my social media and more than half of the parents that participated in it, said their toddlers and babies were already front facing and were barely a year old.
But upon my discovery of newer research I was surprised to find that in fact, it is recommended that children remain rear-facing in their car seats till they are at least 4 years old.
“Independent studies of real traffic accidents carried out by Volvo and Folksam show that your child, up to the age of 4 years, has a 5 times greater chance of surviving and/or avoiding serious injury if sitting rear facing rather than forward facing in the car. Traffic accident studies from Volvo show that amongst children sitting rear facing in the age group 0-4 years, only 8
% was injured and needed medical assistance. For children sitting forward facing in the same age group, 40% of the children needed medical assistance.”
Travelling with rear facing car seats will greatly reduce the stress on the neck
If the muscles in a child’s neck are subject to too great a force, the consequences may be catastrophic. By being seated in a rear-facing position you will greatly reduce the stress inflicted on the neck.
“When a collision occurs at 50 km/h (31 mph) the stress inflicted on the neck of a child that weighs 15 kg and is seated in a forward facing position will be the equivalent of 180-220 kg. If the child instead is seated rear-facing, the stress would be reduced to 40-60kg. At the same time the car seat will protect the child from debris flying around in the car.”
This statistic in particular totally freaked me out! I was terrified just thinking about the level of lawless driving I need to navigate on a daily basis by just the taxi drivers not to mention negligent drivers.
My next step was finding the safest possible car seat – this led me to the ‘BeSafe’ range of seats – they are rated the safest car seat in the world and naturally the top choice for Esa. He has the ‘BeSafe Izi Modular’ which can be rear-facing and front facing.
I did look at other car seats much to the frustration of my poor husband who had to take me to numerous baby stores that stocked car seats. But I knew I had settled on the right seat with the ‘BeSafe Izi Modular’ once I did my research.
Whatever car seat you choose for your precious cargo – the research doesn’t lie – our kids are safer rear-facing in the event of a collision (which heaven forbid ever happens) perhaps it’s time to turn them around and have them rear-facing till they are at least 4 years old. Esa will be rear-facing till he is 4 years old.
*Research sourced from Volvo and Folksam
Wardah
Happy Healthy Fabulous
* This blog post was done in collaboration with BeSafe.
