Take time to use car seats safely

    Child Passenger Safety Week is upon us once again, and this seems like a perfect opportunity to discuss the importance of properly utilizing child safety restraints. While motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children ages 1-13, many of these deaths, and injuries, can be prevented with the proper use of car seats, booster seats and seat belts.
    The easiest way to ensure the child safety restraint is being properly used is to have it inspected by a nationally certified child passenger safety technician. You can find a list of technicians on the Safe Kids website at cert.safekids.org, or by visiting Car SeatsColorado.com.
    If you are unable to meet with a technician right away, here are a few tips to increase your child’s safety by decreasing the chance of misuse of the child safety restraint:
    —Selection: Every child safety restraint has height, weight and sometimes age limits that must be followed in order to adequately protect your child. Always read the owner’s manual and labels on the child restraint to ensure your child’s height, weight, age and developmental levels are appropriate for the selected restraint. Also, make sure you have checked to see if there are any recalls on the seat. It is important that you know the complete history of the child restraint if you did not buy it from a store. Using a seat that has been mistreated, crashed or installed improperly may increase the risk of injury to your child.
    —Direction: Children should remain rear-facing until they are at least 2 years of age or have outgrown the upper height or weight limits of their convertible child restraint, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is important because a rear-facing child restraint will distribute the crash forces along the back shell of the restraint, which in turn protects the child’s head, neck and spine. Children under the age of 2 are not physically developed and their neck and spine are unable to withstand the crash forces they would experience in a forward-facing child restraint.

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