How to choose the right safety seat for your baby? Today, I share with you a guide to the best child safety seat purchases in 2022
In 2015, the World Health Organization released the Ten Strategies for Keeping Children Safe in Traffic. The report shows that the use of restraint devices such as child car seats can reduce the probability of infant road traffic accident death by 70% and is an effective way to ensure children’s traffic safety.
At the same time, many countries and cities have mandatory legislation – private car travel with children, must prepare and use a safety seat.
Of course, some parents may think that when the baby is so small, it is enough to hold it, so why use a child safety seat.
However, when the vehicle collided at a speed of 50 km/h, the impact force generated by a 12 kg child was equivalent to a weight of hundreds of kg, and we could not hold it at all.
Therefore, the child safety seat is already a just-needed product. How to choose a suitable safety seat for your baby is a more worthy topic of discussion.
01 The riding position of the baby at different ages
Under normal circumstances, babies of 6-7 months can sit and stand. When purchasing a child safety seat, they need to meet the requirements of sitting and lying down.
Babies under 6 months need to choose a safety seat that can be adjusted to lie flat. Most of the child safety seats on the market today will be designed according to the age and weight of the seat, and the angle and height can be adjusted in multiple gears to meet the needs of babies of different ages.
If you want to do it in one step, you can choose a safety seat for 0-12 years old.
It is very important to keep in mind that the child under the age of 4 should be seated in a rear-facing child safety seat, which is the safest for a newborn baby.
Studies have shown that a baby sitting in a reverse car seat has a 75% lower risk of death or serious injury than when riding in the forward direction.
This is because the newborn’s spine is not fully developed in all aspects. If the baby rides in the forward direction, in the event of an accident, the baby’s heavier head will go out first, thereby bending the tender cervical vertebra and spine, causing serious accident sequelae.
02 Selection of safety seat groups
Different groups of safety seats have very different sizes and proportions. How to choose them? You can look at the groups first:
- 0-15 months (0-13kg) baby car safety carrier
- 0～4 years old (0～18kg) Newborn safety seat
- 9 months ~ 12 years old (0 ~ 36kg) growth type car seat
- 0~12 years old (0-36kg) growth type safety seat
The above group criteria are only used as a basic reference for parents to narrow the target range.
The real purchase still needs to be comprehensively measured according to the baby’s age + weight + height, not just the age group. After all, children of the same age group are sometimes quite different in height and weight.
A growth safety seat that can adjust the size of the seat and the height of the headrest as the baby’s body grows. It is very popular with parents because of its wide age range.
03 Safety seat material and craftsmanship
I believe that the most important thing for everyone when buying a safety seat is the material of the seat. After all, the quality of the seat frame material determines whether it can protect the baby in the event of an accident.
There are generally three production processes for plastic parts of child safety seats: injection molding, blow molding integration, blow molding, and the shock resistance decreases in turn.
The hollow blow-molded safety seat has a simple structure and will appear light, but the actual compression performance is relatively poor.
The solid injection molding seat has a complex structure, a smooth surface, and relatively strong resistance to pressure and impact.
There are three commonly used shock-absorbing cushioning materials in safety seats: EPE, EPS, and EPP.
Among them, EPP (Expanded polypropylene) is the best, which is a highly crystalline polymer/gas composite material with excellent performance. It has excellent shock resistance and energy absorption, high recovery rate after deformation, and good heat resistance. , chemical resistance, oil resistance and thermal insulation.
In addition, its light weight can greatly reduce the weight of items. Of course, the cost is also high. Products made of this material often cost three or four thousand yuan.
04 The necessity of side protection for child safety seats
One thing that is often overlooked is the side impact of a car.
Statistics show that the fatality rate of side impacts in traffic accidents is as high as 44%. The front of the car has a front, the rear has a trunk buffer, and there are only two doors on the side, so the risk factor of side impact is the highest.
Therefore, the side protection of the child safety seat is very important. In the event of a side collision, the side protection can absorb and buffer the impact force generated during the collision, and protect the safety of the child’s head and shoulders.
The most important thing about safety seats is safety.
The German ADAC test has strong credibility, especially German car seat brands generally participate in this test, and its test results are a strong basis for reference when purchasing car seats abroad.
I think the most rigorous ADAC test is that the child safety seats to be tested are randomly purchased from the market by the test staff, which eliminates the possibility of cheating by brand manufacturers.
Many European brands of child safety seats aim to pass the most stringent German ADAC certification to gain user recognition, so child safety seats that have passed this ADAC certification can be purchased with confidence.
In a brief summary, generally babies under 4 years old are suitable for reverse riding; choose different groups of safety seats according to their age; safety seat materials and craftsmanship; the necessity of side protection of child safety seats.
Okay, the above is the sharing this time. I hope it can help you in the purchase of child safety seats. If you like it, please leave a message to me~.
