It depends on a number of things....
Today I sat down with my friend Danielle Meintanis from Mighty Mama Birth Services to discuss carseat safety. Like myself, Danielle has been a car seat safety advocate since her oldest child was a baby, but this past summer she decided to become a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician. I thought it would be great to hear from a professional, so I asked her some questions.
Q: Why did you decide to become a Child Passenger Safety Tech.?
A: I saw a lot of mistakes that parents or caregivers were making and I didn't want to offer advice without being professionally trained to help them.
Q: Although I'm a car seat safety advocate, I'm not professionally trained and I'm aware that I could be missing something important. During your training, what did you learn that you didn't know before your training?
A: We were told at the beginning of the class that everyone will go home and redo our car seats and that was true. Everyone learned something new.
Q: When you're doing car seat safety checks, what all is entailed in this process? Do you teach the parents how to install and safely buckle their children into their seats?
The first thing we do is take all the car seats and boosters out of the car to check for recalls, damage, etc.
Then we make sure the child fits in the seat correctly and the straps are where they should be.
Next, we figure out where the best place is for each seat and make sure that the seats can be installed correctly into the vehicle.
Lastly, we uninstall the car seats and have the parents install them, then we check to make sure that they've got the seats installed correctly.
Q: What are the top most common mistakes that you see parents/caregivers making in regards to car seat safety?
A: 1. Using the LATCH & seat belt together.
-Many people feel that if they're safe on their own, it must be better when using both together, but this method can actually put too much strain on the car seat.
2. The straps are too loose.
-Many people think that if children are buckled, they will be safe, but if the straps are too loose on your child, it can be very dangerous in the event of a car accident, which brings us to our next point.
3. Wearing coats in car seats.
-Coats in car seats are a bad idea because they add bulk to your child, which means you have to loosen the straps. In the event of a crash, the coat will compress and your child could be ejected from the car seat.
4. The chest clip in the wrong place.
-Often times, people will buckle the chest clip but won't make sure that the chest clip is on the child's chest. It's often left too low (on the child's stomach) or too high up (near their throat). The chest clip should actually be aligned with the child's armpit, right across their chest.
5. After market products in car seats.
-People believe that just because it's sold in stores, it's safe to use. The truth is that many individual items that you buy to add to the car seat are not approved to safely use by the car seats manufacturer. Please call your car seats manufacturer before using anything in the car seat that did not come with that seat. Even if the item is mad by the same company, it may not be approved for the carseat model that you have.
6. Car seat location.
- Everyone hears that the middle seat is the safest, however, that's not always the case. It depends on the seat, the vehicle and the child. If you are using a middle seat and want to use the latch system, but the tethers are for the two side seats, it might be best to use the seat belt or move the car seat to another location in order to use the latch system safely.
The best thing to do is bring your vehicle, car seats & children to a professional to ensure that your family is as safe as possible. You can schedule an appointment with Danielle by visiting www.mightymamabirthservices.com or find a place near you to set up an appointment by going to safekids.org If you would like your car seats checked out this weekend, there is a car seat safety check coming up on November 14th 10a.-1p. Target Garage 1101 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL.
