Delivering Baby in Car Set Off Air Bags
Are car airbags safe for mumshoped-for, babies and children?
When is it safety to have the airbag switched on, and when tin it do more damage than skilful? MFM investigates what meaning women and parents demand to know about in-car safety.
When information technology comes to road safety, airbags save lives. It's a fact. Only what happens when you're pregnant, or if you're travelling with a baby or child? Is information technology all the same safe to employ them, or should they exist switched off?
The thought of an airbag is to create a soft pillow to lean into if the auto you lot are travelling in crashes. RoSPA (The Majestic Society for the Prevention of Accidents) estimates that since their introduction in the UK 1,500 lives take been saved by airbags. But in certain circumstances it seems that an airbag can do more harm than good.
Pregnant women
Feeling protective of your crash-land is office of being pregnant, so it'due south natural to wonder what the effect of a rapidly inflating airbag might exist on y'all and your unborn baby.
Recent enquiry from the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, United states, states that if a car airbag inflates in front of a pregnant woman, it's unlikely to increase the risk of complications in your pregnancy, such as foetal distress, or the risk of you having to have a caesarean.
Withal, at the same time the researchers constitute the risk of an unborn baby dying afterward mum was involved in an accident was i% with an airbag, just just 0.iii% without an airbag. Given that the researchers looked at virtually 3,500 accidents at that place does seem to be some risk only still, the advice is to keep the bag switched on.
According to Chris Patience from the AA, pregnant women travelling in the front of the car should push button the passenger seat as far back as possible to avert their bump taking the full force of the airbag.
And if yous're the commuter, you need to be aware of the 10-inch dominion. "It is generally accepted that drivers who sit more than than 10 inches from the centre of the steering wheel will do good most from the airbag", Chris says.
What'south important to remember is that airbags are not substitutes for seatbelts – they're designed to piece of work with them. And whilst it might be uncomfortable to wear a seat chugalug when you're pregnant, information technology will improve safety for both you and your unborn infant.
Babies and young toddlers
For parents of newborns or babies travelling in rear facing car seats, the advice is clear – the airbag must be turned off. Information technology'south the law.
RoSPA explains that rear facing baby car seats (Group 0 and Grouping 0+) must non be used in the front seat of the car when the air bag is switched on because airbags inflate and then quickly (upwardly to 200mph). At this speed an airbag hitting a rear facing car seat is probable to push the babe automobile seat towards the dorsum of the motorcar, or fifty-fifty divide it in 2.
The Section of Send has a stark warning for parents who exercise not plow the airbag off: "Airbags are powerful condom devices. A rear facing child seat would be hitting when a frontal airbag is deployed – and could exist thrown up and towards the rear of the vehicle. This ways that the child seat and child could be completely unrestrained in a crash."
Children in car seats or booster seats (upwardly to 135cm in height)
For children travelling in forward facing car seats, the advice is less clear. Children of whatever age can travel in the front seat of the machine, as long as they're using the advisable car seat or booster seat and they're buckled in. A car seat or booster seat puts them in the right position so that they get the maximum protection from the developed seatbelt.
Just when it comes to the airbag, parents have two options. "In this situation, we recommend disabling the airbag. This goes against what many people say just nosotros believe it is the safest option," says David Evans, a Auto Safety Specialist from Which? mag.
"A child's head is disproportionately big compared to its body. Every bit a effect, the total impact of an airbag hitting them would exist to cause severe caput and neck injuries. This is because children have weaker cervix, back and breadbasket muscles than adults and they cannot stay upright in a crash."
The second option is to go out the airbag turned on. If you decide to do this it'south wise to motility the car seat back as far every bit possible on its runners. This will maximise the distance between child and airbag and will reduce the force with which the airbag will strike your child.
This best advice is to avoid using the front of the auto at all. "There is nothing illegal nearly young children travelling in the forepart of the auto," says a spokesperson for the Child Blow Prevention Trust. "However, the rear of a car is e'er a safer place to travel".
Children who are out of car seats (over 135cm in height)
In one case your child reaches 12 years of age, or 135cm, they no longer need to use a booster seat. So information technology seems natural to assume that sitting in the front of the auto, with the airbag turned on, is a safety place to travel.
Merely take the case of Chloe Bunney. In May 2009, Chloe was killed by a passenger airbag while travelling in the forepart passenger seat of her mum's car, despite wearing a seatbelt. Chloe was 10 at the time of the crash, in which her mum swerved into the path of another vehicle.
According to a report in the Daily Mail, "she suffered a fractured skull when the airbag smashed into her…". And although she was only ten, at 149cm she was 14cm taller than the 135cm superlative limit.
Some enquiry suggests that airbags may actually increase the risk of death and injury for the under 10s. This is considering children aren't yet strong enough to stay sitting upright in a crash.
One American written report of 9,779 crashes establish that the risk of whatever injury (both minor and serious) to under the 15s travelling in the forepart seat of the car was 86% with an airbag, only 55% without one.
The advice for parents so is to avert the forepart seat if at all possible. The safest place for children to travel is the back seat of the car. "The center of the 2nd row of seats has been shown to be the safest place for children to travel," says Evans. And armed with the facts it seems sensible to follow the advice.
Source: https://www.madeformums.com/school-and-family/are-car-airbags-safe-for-mums-to-be-babies-and-children/
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