Many people think that once their children reach the age of 1, it is okay to move them from a rear-facing car seat into a forward-facing car seat. Unfortunately, this could be a deadly decision. The law states a child should only rear face until they reach the age of 1 and are 20 pounds, so there is nothing illegal the parents are doing when placing their child in a forward- facing car seat. However, recent research has shown that a young child could be at risk of being critically injured or even killed, if they are turned forward facing too soon. What are the risks, and what can we do to solve this problem?
The biggest problem researchers found is that a child under the age of three does not have an intact spinal cord. The spinal cord is not fully developed until they are at least three (sometimes older). This in general is not a big deal. This does, however, become a problem to a young child who is in a forward- facing car seat, and is involved in an accident. Studies show that getting hit from behind is the most common type of accident. When a child in a forward-facing seat is involved in this type of accident, they could become internally decapitated due to their spinal cord and other muscles not being fully developed. In most cases, if internally decapitated, the child will die. The child goes through the same motion an adult would when getting hit from behind. The only difference is, the adult would only have whip-lash, but the child could die. If they were rear-facing, all of this would have been prevented, and the child would most likely walk away from the accident unharmed.
If we look at other countries in the world, such as Sweden, we will see that they have a higher age where the child is rear facing. It is not uncommon to see a five year old rear-facing in Sweden. Their government has taken necessary precautions to prevent any children from getting unnecessarily hurt in a car accident. When looking at the studies in Sweden showing...