chicot60
03-21-2011, 08:59 AM
By Patricia Callahan, Chicago Tribune
Doctors now say children should use rear-facing safety seats until at least age 2
Reporting from Chicago— The nation's largest organization of pediatricians is telling its members and parents that children riding in cars should remain in rear-facing child safety seats at least until their second birthday — and preferably even longer.
This reverses advice many pediatricians gave parents for years that children's car seats should be turned around shortly after their first birthday.
The new policy from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published Monday in the Pediatrics medical journal, is bolstered by research that shows children under 2 are 75% less likely to die or be severely injured in a crash if they are in rear-facing child restraints.
Equally important, the academy recommends that children remain in seats with five-point safety harnesses as long as possible and should change to booster seats that rely on adult seat belts only when they exceed the height and weight limits for the five-point harness.
Five-point harnesses, which run across children's shoulders and hips and buckle between their legs, provide more protection than seat belts because they distribute the crash forces evenly over the strong, bony parts of children's bodies.
The pediatricians also recommend that children remain in booster seats until they are 4 feet 9 — a height most children don't reach until they are between 8 and 12 years old.
Even when children are tall enough to change to adult seat belts, the academy's policy is that they should ride in the back seat until age 13.
"Every parent wants their kids to achieve things as fast as they can," said Dr. Ben Hoffman, a University of New Mexico associate professor of pediatrics who helped write the new policy. "That's fantastic for developmental milestones or for school. But for child passenger safety, that's the wrong attitude to have."
The federal government is set to issue updated child seat guidance Monday that echoes the pediatricians' advice.
Although the use of child car seats has dramatically reduced deaths and injuries in the last decade, vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for children 4 and older. About 1,500 children under age 16 die in vehicle crashes each year in the U.S., the Pediatrics report said.
Dr. Dennis Durbin, an emergency room pediatric physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Pediatrics report's chief author, acknowledged that some parents and children might balk at aspects of the new policy. Durbin is a father who said he understood that older children were expert negotiators.
"There are certain things I'm willing to negotiate — bedtime, teeth brushing, broccoli for dinner — but safety is nonnegotiable," he said. "If parents establish that early in life, they'll get less pushback over time."
Durbin recommends that parents who have turned a safety seat to face forward on a child's first birthday reinstall that seat to face the rear. Many parents believe larger toddlers will be uncomfortable in rear-facing seats or will hurt their legs in a crash, but Durbin said they were mistaken.
When researchers at Durbin's hospital looked at children between the ages of 1 and 4 hurt in wrecks, leg injuries were rare for those in rear-facing seats, but they were the second most common injury for those in forward-facing seats, he said. That's because the legs of a child in a forward-facing seat are thrown forward in most crashes and can hit the console or the back of the driver's or passenger's front seat.
Rear-facing seats act like cocoons, cradling children's heads, torsos, arms and legs, and spread crash forces over a larger area.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-car-seats-20110321,0,2624954.story
Doctors now say children should use rear-facing safety seats until at least age 2
Reporting from Chicago— The nation's largest organization of pediatricians is telling its members and parents that children riding in cars should remain in rear-facing child safety seats at least until their second birthday — and preferably even longer.
This reverses advice many pediatricians gave parents for years that children's car seats should be turned around shortly after their first birthday.
The new policy from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published Monday in the Pediatrics medical journal, is bolstered by research that shows children under 2 are 75% less likely to die or be severely injured in a crash if they are in rear-facing child restraints.
Equally important, the academy recommends that children remain in seats with five-point safety harnesses as long as possible and should change to booster seats that rely on adult seat belts only when they exceed the height and weight limits for the five-point harness.
Five-point harnesses, which run across children's shoulders and hips and buckle between their legs, provide more protection than seat belts because they distribute the crash forces evenly over the strong, bony parts of children's bodies.
The pediatricians also recommend that children remain in booster seats until they are 4 feet 9 — a height most children don't reach until they are between 8 and 12 years old.
Even when children are tall enough to change to adult seat belts, the academy's policy is that they should ride in the back seat until age 13.
"Every parent wants their kids to achieve things as fast as they can," said Dr. Ben Hoffman, a University of New Mexico associate professor of pediatrics who helped write the new policy. "That's fantastic for developmental milestones or for school. But for child passenger safety, that's the wrong attitude to have."
The federal government is set to issue updated child seat guidance Monday that echoes the pediatricians' advice.
Although the use of child car seats has dramatically reduced deaths and injuries in the last decade, vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for children 4 and older. About 1,500 children under age 16 die in vehicle crashes each year in the U.S., the Pediatrics report said.
Dr. Dennis Durbin, an emergency room pediatric physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Pediatrics report's chief author, acknowledged that some parents and children might balk at aspects of the new policy. Durbin is a father who said he understood that older children were expert negotiators.
"There are certain things I'm willing to negotiate — bedtime, teeth brushing, broccoli for dinner — but safety is nonnegotiable," he said. "If parents establish that early in life, they'll get less pushback over time."
Durbin recommends that parents who have turned a safety seat to face forward on a child's first birthday reinstall that seat to face the rear. Many parents believe larger toddlers will be uncomfortable in rear-facing seats or will hurt their legs in a crash, but Durbin said they were mistaken.
When researchers at Durbin's hospital looked at children between the ages of 1 and 4 hurt in wrecks, leg injuries were rare for those in rear-facing seats, but they were the second most common injury for those in forward-facing seats, he said. That's because the legs of a child in a forward-facing seat are thrown forward in most crashes and can hit the console or the back of the driver's or passenger's front seat.
Rear-facing seats act like cocoons, cradling children's heads, torsos, arms and legs, and spread crash forces over a larger area.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-car-seats-20110321,0,2624954.story