About
About CarSeatSafety.com.au
CarSeatSafety.com.au is brought to you by Kimberly Breece. An Australian/American currently living in Australia.
Having my first child in the USA and knowing how strict the laws for keeping a baby rear-facing in a car seat for a minimum of 12 months, then moving to Australia to have the second child, I was completely confused by the contradicting as well as lack of information relating to the importance of keeping your baby rear-facing.
In the US, if you were found to have turned your infant around before 12 months people would think you were insane and must have a death wish for your child!
Then I move back to Australia and come across parents everyday who are quick to turn their bubs around sometimes as early as 4 months! They have been told as long as baby has good neck control it is okay, a statement which leaves too much room for interpretation, some babies are lifting their head the day they’re born.
I knew Australia had a reputation for great car seat standards, but I wasn’t comfortable turning my then 9 month old around to face forward unless I knew for sure there was a good reason why, now that I’ve moved back to Australia, this was suddenly okay.
After months of investigation, research and phone calls, I came to the conclusion that although Australia is looked at as being a world leader in car seat standards, the lack of continued research and crash tests involving the child IN the car seat have kept Australia behind in keeping their new parents well and accurately informed on baby car seat safety.
Once I finally got through to the people who make these decisions I was told what I already knew, rear facing is safer for everyone.
The person I spoke with went on to say if he were me he would keep his baby rear facing for longer as well. He stated that the reason this was not common knowledge in Australia was because they didn’t want to “confuse” parents and they hadn’t really found that there was much more danger to a child when they are forward facing.
However when I asked for crash test results and evidence to back up this statement he grew impatient and told me there was not any and the test they had done they were not happy with the results so were not going to publish them!
There is far too much evidence which can be found with simple searches supporting keeping a child rear facing for 12 months (and in some countries even longer) and not any evidence supporting why it is okay to turn a baby to face forward at (the Australian well know answer of) “6 months or when baby has good head control”.
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All information contained on CarSeatSafety.com.au has been obtained through thorough investigation and research from worldwide safety experts, doctors, pediatricians and parents themselves (some of the best experts of all).
In the USA, Since 1997, doctors and scientists at Children’s Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania have studied more than 300,000 motor vehicle crashes to learn more about child safety. The information on this site follows current safety recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Listed below are just some of these great resources used to bring this long overdue, much needed and very useful car seat safety site to you.
Partners for Child Passenger Safety
http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp
American Academy of Pediatrics
http://www.aap.org/
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
http://www.nhtsa.gov/
Car-Safety.org
http://www.car-safety.org/rearface.html
