Carseats
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Discussion: Archive January-June 2004:
Carseats
When my son was under a year we were told we could not turn his carseat around until he was exactly 1 year old & 20 pounds. Which wasn't a problem because he is a little guy. My daughters carseat says not to use rear-facing after the infant reaches 20 pounds, she will be 20 pounds well before her first birthday. Should we look for a new carseat, or have the standards changed again. Or were we informed wrong with my son? She is not quite 16 pounds now, but she is 3.5 months old.
We bought a new car seat for my son when he was close to the 20 pound mark - he was always big for his age, and going by weight alone, could have been front facing at seven months. We didn't feel comfortable about that. We bought him a Cosco Omegea (I think - whatever one comes in an Eddie Bauer design) - this is a rear facing, then front facing and then becomes a booster seat - so it's the last car seat (God willing) I'll have to buy for him. Get something that's going to last and one that turns into a booster, so you won't have to buy a booster later on. They're not cheap, but if you think about how many years you'll be using it and what it's designed to do, it's worth the money, IMO.
Ame
Well, since Trina's gone I'll jump in. Yes, she'll need a new seat at some point soon. Most 'toddler' carseats are convertable seats that go from rear facing 5 lb. babies to forward facing 40 or so lbs. These seats generally go up to 30 pounds rear facing, make sure she checks that for certain. Then hopefully she'll be at least a year before she hits the new car seat limit and she can turn her around. Any actual baby store will be able to explain it all to her, or she'll just have to be careful about reading the info at a Wal Mart or K Mart type store where they don't have any baby experts.
I'm sorry, Emily...I misread your post! I thought you were saying when your son was little this is how it was, and now your daughter has her own baby and things have changed. Sorry about that!!!! (of course, how your son could have morphed into a daughter as an adult is something that should have caught me!) 
I have been curious about this also lately. My dd is a week shy of 1 year, but she is barely over 17 pounds, if that. So do we wait until she is 20 pounds to move her to front facing? We still have her in her infant carrier carseat (if that is what it is called--the kind with a base that stays in the car and the carrier is removable).
Yes Emily, you do not want to move her forward facing until she is 1 yr AND 20 lbs. It is much safer at her age and weight to keep her rear facing.
Thats what I thought. My dh is going to kill me! I gave away my ds old car seat to a family that needed one bad. They had a 24 pound 6 month old foward facing in a carrier!
My dh bought this one, I just told him make sure it can be used rear-facing. It is, its just up to 20 pounds only. He put it in & threw the box away. Its weird, because it is rated for up to 40 pounds, but only 20 rear facing. I think I better call the manufacture, maybe I am reading it wrong.
This will be a quickie as I'm checking in on my Dad's PC in VA.
The bare minimum requirements for turning a baby forward facing is 12 mos. AND 20 lbs.. The AAP is now recommending infants to stay rear facing longer, until they reach the rear facing limits of the convertible seat. Yes, you will need to get a convertible car seat with a higher rear facing weight limit. Most go to 30-33 lbs. now but some only go to 20. More info at these sites:
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/stayrearfacing.aspx
http://www.parentsplace.com/babies/safety/articles/0,10335,240282_263876,00.html
Sorry, for some reason I can't get them to work as links. Here is the bottom article. You can copy and paste the first web address into your web browser address bar.
Rear-facing car seats: What you need to know
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 is the Director of the Child Passenger Protection Research Program at the University of Michigan Medical School
Okay, I am an idiot! I told my husband that we needed to get a new car seat & he proved me wrong! I just need to finish reading things!
I'm confused....how did he prove you wrong? I thought your seat was only rated to 20 lbs. rear facing?? In which case you would need a new seat.
I didn't read it right. It is rated for rear facing up to 30 pounds. It said that it must be used rear facing for infants 5-20 pounds. Some how my mind thought it meant it couldn't be used past 20 pounds. I plead sleep depervation!
Ohhhhh, I understand! It IS a confusing issue!! And things seem to change constantly in this carseat arena! Glad it will work for you!
LOL, No Emily, you're not an idiot! {{{HUGS}}} Glad to hear your current seat has a 30 lb. rear facing limit.
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