Besafe rear facing car seats

Devon Pram Centre wants your kids to to safe as possible & supports the rear facing car seats campaign. When you hear about how much safer a rear facing car seat is, you naturally want to get a rear facing car seat for your child.

Why rear facing?

Did you know that it's five times safer for a child to be rear facing? Scandinavian children are rear facing until they are 4–5 years old (25kg or 55lbs), which has resulted in a much lower number of children injured or dead in car accidents compared with other countries, as for instance the UK.

Safer in an accident

The most dangerous car accidents are frontal collisions. They represent the accidents where the highest speeds and the greatest forces are at play. When a child is forward facing and a frontal collision occurs the child is flung forward in the seat, being caught by the harness. This puts stress on the neck, the spine, and the internal organs.

The neck is completely unprotected when the head is catapulted forward. Whether the child can withstand the force of impact has nothing to do with muscle power. It is the spine that has to keep the head in place. (Not even physically strong adults can keep their heads in place using muscle power in an accident, but adult's skeletons are different to children's) A child's spine and skeleton is still growing. It has not solidified into bone yet, but is still very soft with lots of cartilage. This means that the neck is vulnerable to the great force it's being subjected to in a car crash and in a worst case scenario the neck will stretch so much that the spine snaps. This is called internal decapitation and basically means that the child has been internally beheaded. In tests, the dummy's neck has been stretched as much as 2 inches, but the spine can not be stretch more than a quarter of an inch before snapping.

The rib cage under the harness is also soft and the ribs will bend rather than snap. The rib cage cannot protect the soft internal organs such as heart and spleen, which might then get damaged.

In a rear facing car seat, the child is flung into the back of the seat and the force of impact is distributed along the whole back of the seat. The neck, spine and internal organs are not subjected to the stress of the force and are therefore protected.

In a forward facing seat the neck is subjected to a force equivalent to 300-320kg, while in a rear facing seat, the force on the neck is equivalent to 50kg.

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Children are not small adults

A child is much more vulnerable in an accident as they are still growing. Their proportions are not the same as adults'. Their heads are 25% of their bodyweight. If adults' heads where the same proportions the head would weigh 20kg.

The child's skeleton has not yet been solidified into bone, but is still soft, mainly consisting of cartilage. When subjected to violent force the skeleton will bend rather than break. On an adult the rib cage protects our vital organs such as heart, lungs, spleen etc. On a child this is not the case. When flung against the harness in a forward facing child seat the rib cage cannot cope with the force on impact and the organs inside might be injured and damaged. Same thing with the neck. The spine has not solidified. It is soft and might stretch and snap, in which case the bone marrow is the only thing left preventing internal decapitation.

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Do experts agree that rearfacing is safer?

Yes, experts agree that rearfacing throughout the group 1 period is much safer for your child. We have confirmation from Which Magazine, the ROSPA, car seat manufacturers and child safety experts to this affect. Visit rearfacing.co.uk [what the experts say] for quotes.

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How will you be able to interact with the child?

It's really dangerous to turn around to talk to your child while driving. With your child rear facing, you are less likely to even try. There are special mirrors you can get if you find that you really need to be able to see your child's face. The recommended way to deal with children that need attention in the car is to stop, turn around and deal with them. Many accidents are caused by drivers dividing their attention between the road and other distractions.

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What about the child getting bored?

Just as for forward facing children, there are activity mats and other forms of entertainments that can be hung in front of the child for amusement. The child can also see out the side window, listen to tapes/cds and such likes. If the child is bored in the car, it is hardly because of the direction of the car seat. If the child is rear facing from the start, s/he will not know any different and will not make a fuss.

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Rear facing car seats available at the Devon Pram Centre

We stock the the Besafe Izi Combi X3 beltfix & Besafe Izi combi x3 Isofix car seats. The Izi combi rear facing car seats are available to buy instore with free fitting from our specialist fitters or you can buy online.

Source: www.rearfacing.co.uk/