This is a little scary, because who hasn’t left their child sleeping in their car seat? Isn’t the standard remedy to parental sleep deprivation supposed to be driving around the block with the child in their car seat? And isn’t the whole point of those infant seats which detach from their bases to facilitate transporting sleeping babies from the car without disturbing them?
Babies should not be left to sleep unattended in semi-reclining car safety seats, because of the risk that the seats might cause life-threatening breathing problems in some infants.New Zealand experts warn that while infant safety seats are vital to protect babies’ lives in car journeys, scattered examples of some babies turning blue or stopping breathing suggest babies should not be left to sleep in them after the journey is over.
A paper in the British Medical Journal finds that among 43 infants referred to the Auckland Cot Monitoring Service after apparently life-threatening breathing problems, nine had been restrained in a car safety seat. All but one of the seats were semi-inclined and rear-facing.
A 10-week old boy was found blue in the seat in the kitchen. A five-week-old girl was found “scrunched up” and very blue in the seat, which was on the floor at her home.
Lead author Alistair Gunn, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Auckland, writes that by reconstructing the scene, the researchers worked out that the seat’s design meant that when babies were in them, their heads were bent forward, narrowing their airways.–The Australian
Related Tags: family, car seats, newborns, parenting, safety
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I hate warnings like these. What if you take a long car trip and the baby sleeps the whole way? There’s not much parents can do about that. Most baby seats have an arrow that indicates how they are supposed to ’seat’ in the car. If you install it correctly, they baby is more horizontal than inclined. I wonder if it a a different design used overseas - the report is from New Zealand?
Actually, I did a little more research and there have been warnings out for awhile that infant seats can lower the oxygen level in the blood of young infants. But the risk associated with this (7 of 43 babies taken to the hospital for breathing difficulties) is a LOT less than the risk if injury from being seated improperly in a vehicle.
I believe that half of those seven were also babies of smokers, another risk factor. The risk is slight, but worth considering when leaving a newborn to sleep in his carseat.
I am a mom of now 9 living children, and each of them have slept long in car seats! When they have had bad colds, we were even recommended by the doctor to put their infant carseats. YIKES!
I’ve heard that the incline is good for babies with breathing difficulties (whether from a cold or some other problem). I remember being recommended to place books or something under one part of the crib or mattress to help with that.
This really is only for newborns, though. Once their neck muscles are strong enough to open the air waves and move the head back of the chin on their own, there shouldn’t be any abnormal risk. (from my limited understanding of what this is about!)