Photo: Regan McCarthy
Rear facing car seats keep young children safer in the event of a crash.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that parents now ride with infants and toddlers in rear-facing car safety seats until the children reach at least the age of two. National American Academy of Pediatrics Committee member Doctor Joe O’Neil said children in rear facing car seats are five-times safer in the event of a crash than those in forward facing seats.
“Most crashes if they come from forward and child is facing backward those forces are distributed evenly along the head and the back so that you’re not focusing the load at any one point. When a child turns forward then we have to carry that load over the strong bony parts of the body—the shoulders and the hips,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil said the practice of using rear facing infant seats has helped to reduce casualties by about 70-percent. He also said researchers have no intention to pursue any legislation requiring children two and younger to be in rear facing seats.
