To help grandparents — and all drivers — keep kids safe in cars with optimal restraint use, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently updated its child passenger safety recommendations (found on www.chop.edu/carseat). In summary, they are:
• Children should ride in a rear-facing seat in the back of the car until age 2 or until they outgrow the rear-facing height and weight limit for the seat.
• Once children outgrow the rear-facing limits for their seat, they should ride in the back in a forward-facing car seat with a 5-point harness (until they outgrow the height and weight limits for the seat).
• When children outgrow a forward-facing seat, they should ride in a beltpositioning booster seat in the rear of the vehicle until they reach 4'9" in height (usually sometime between age 8 and 12).
• After that, children should ride in the rear seat using a lap and shoulder belt until age 13. “Back when we were raising our children, the use of child restraint systems after 3 or 4 was rare,” says Dr. Henretig, grandfather to two toddlers. “It gives me peace of mind to know that today my two granddaughters are using child safety seats that are proven to protect them in crashes, on every trip.”
For more information about the study, visit www.chop.edu/cchips. The Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) that focuses exclusively on making children and adolescents safer.
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