Infants in car seats may not get enough oxygen
There’s no doubt that infant car seats, when used as intended, are life-savers. But according to a brief report in the British Medical Journal, leaving an infant sleeping unattended in those car seats can be life-threatening.
When properly installed in the car, those infant seats are semi-reclined and appropriate for usage. But when an infant is left restrained and/or brought indoors where the car seat is less reclined, the infant’s heads are often flopped forward causing a decline in oxygen saturation.
The British Medical Journal reported, “Dr. Alistair Jan Gunn, from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues analyzed data from all infants who were referred to the Auckland Cot Monitoring Service for an apparently life-threatening event between July 1999 and December 2000.
Forty-three infants were referred to the service during the study period, the report indicates. Of these infants, nine had been left sleeping while restrained in a car safety seat. In all but one case, the infant had been left in the car seat while indoors and had been in a more or less upright position.
The nine infants ranged in age from 3 days to 6 months and had an average birth weight of 6.9 pounds. One of the infants was preterm, while the remainder were full-term, with normal growth. Five of the nine mothers were smokers.”
What the team found when reconstructing the circumstances was that the heads of the infants were often bent forward while restrained in an infant seat on a flat surface (as opposed to a semi-reclined seat in the car).
When the actual infants had the traumatic event in the carseat, they were said to be bluish in appearance and “four of them were described as limp and less responsive”. All infants were resuscitated successfully by caregivers picking them up, patting their backs or gently shaking.
Dr. Gunn suggests, “Modifying car safety seats so that head flexion is unlikely could avoid the risk of apparently life threatening events.”
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, December 9, 2006