HESSEQUA NEWS - Being restrained in a car seat can save the life of your child when your vehicle is involved in an accident.

Adults are often seen driving around with their children moving around freely inside the car. 

In the case of an accident, the child who is not safely restrained in a car seat, will suffer severe or even fatal injury.

A car seat reduces the risk of your child dying by up to 71% and reduces the need for hospitalisation by 69%. “Car seats have saved the lives of many children,” says the director of Car Seat Full Stop, who shared the importance of the different car seats for children at their different ages. “Every child from birth to roughly age 12 (at 1.5 m tall) needs the correct car seat for their height, weight and stage of development.”

There are three distinct stages of car seats
Every newborn needs to be in an infant seat from the day the mother leaves the maternity home/hospital until he is at least 6 months old or when he can sit unassisted. The infant seat is suitable for a baby from birth to about age one, when he weighs 13 kg or is 75 cm tall.

The toddler seat should be used when the toddler weighs from 13 kg or 75 cm to 18 kg or 105 cm and is usually 4 years old. A rear-facing car seat is best, especially for children under under two years old.

The full backed seat belt-positioning booster seat is used from the time they outgrow the toddler seat harness and can be used until they are 1.5 m tall or between 10 and 12 years old.

The backrest offers side impact protection and keeps the head and neck safe. The full backed booster also provides guides to using the car’s 3-point seat belt, which must be placed on the strongest points of your child's body, namely the shoulder, chest and upper thighs, as opposed to the vulnerable neck and belly.

Why use a car seat?
According to Stats SA 2018, transport accidents are the leading accurately-recorded cause of non-natural death in children under 14 in South Africa. When a car crashes or slams on brakes, the body takes on the weight of the speed you were travelling at, multiplied by your actual weight. So if your child weighs 10 kg and you are driving at 60 km/h, the impact weight will be 600 kg. At that impact weight and with the child's small body allowing free motion inside the car, the child can easily be ejected through the windscreen or side windows. It is a proven fact that 75% of children ejected from a car dies, and most of those that actually survive, are permanently disabled. At only 40 km/h, the blow to your unrestrained child’s head making contact with any part of the car is equivalent to dropping him from a second story balcony (6 m) onto concrete.

Your child is ready to use a seat belt when

• He can sit with his back against the backrest and legs flat on the seat
• His knees bent over the edge of car’s seat, with feet flat on the floor
• The shoulder belt is smooth and diagonal across the chest, between the neck and shoulder
• The lap belt is as low as possible and not across the belly
• The child can remain comfortably like this for the whole trip.

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