Infant Transition From Car Bed to Car Safety Seat

Studies show that car seats can directly reduce injury in motor vehicle accidents. Unfortunately, some premature and term infants have trouble breathing from the semi-upright seating position in car seats. As a result, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends car seat challenge testing for at-risk infants, including all children born at less than 37 weeks gestation and other high risk newborns such as those with a history of breathing problems and/or low tone. Infants who fail the car seat test are discharged home in car beds. However, guidelines regarding timing of repeat car seat testing or safe transition back to a car seat are currently unavailable.

At present there is no system for continued evaluation of infants sent home in car beds. In addition, it is not known when it is safe to transition infants from their car bed to a car seat. Infants transitioned too early may still have breathing problems and those transitioned too late may be at risk for injury in the event of a crash. Due to these reasons it is important to find out when it is safe to transition infants from the car bed to a car seat

Moreover, it has recently been shown that some infants with apparent life threatening events (ALTE), have a smaller jaw size than their peers that did not have an ALTE. ALTEs can occur when infants are in their car seats. No studies have been found that looked to see if infants with breathing problems in their car seats also have small jaws. Furthermore no studies have looked to see if infants who fail their initial car seat challenge are at greater risk for respiratory illness during their first year of life.

Inclusion criteria

• All infants who visit Children's Hospital Boston, Center for Healthy Infant Lung Development for follow up car seat testing

Exclusion criteria

• None