Get that child car seat for your baby’s sake.

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The right car seat, fitted in the right way, and used always can save your child’s life. 

Driving anywhere in Kenya, you’ll often find a majority of private vehicle owners carrying their infants and toddlers on the front seat of their cars. Now these are people who spent hundreds of thousands of shillings to buy a car but are ignorant of the risk they expose their children to each time they have them sit on the front seat or on their laps as they drive.I bet you that if you can buy a car you can afford a descent car seat for your child.

rearfacing

A child car seat is a specially made safety seat that provides your child with the same kind of protection that you get from your safety belt. Almost all cars seats are designed with adults in mind and so the need for a safety car seat for children.

Some people will argue that when they are with their child in the car they drive with extra caution and so they do not require a car seat while others will dismiss the idea of a safety seat as a foreign concept but the reality is that even a little force on the car either by you braking abruptly or being hit from either side by alco-blow evading drivers can send your precious child to a fatal dive through your wind screen.

FACT: In a crash, at just 48.3 kilometers per hour, an unrestrained passenger is thrown forward with a force thirty to sixty times their body weight. What if that unrestrained passenger were a small child? The child would almost certainly be hurled about inside the vehicle, injuring themselves and other passengers. Worse still, they’re likely to be thrown from the vehicle through one of the windows.It’s not even safe to hold a child on your lap while driving. In a crash, the child could be crushed between your body and part of the interior of the car. Even if you were held in by a seatbelt the child would be pulled from your arms by the force of the collision. You simply wouldn’t be able to hold on to the child, no matter how hard you tried.

It is for this reason that it is absolutely important that you get an infant/child car seat. This should be made mandatory through a law and am sure one day soon the transport ministry and the National Transport Safety Authority will make sure of this. There are basically three kinds of car seats to choose from. There’s the rear facing car seat that idea for under 2 year old’s since it’s better on their spine should an accident occur exerting a forward force on them. Then there’s the front facing car seat that is ideal for over 2 year old’s and lastly the booster seat for older children who still don’t fit in the typical vehicle seat.

It is recommended that children must normally use a child car seat until they’re 12 years old or 135cm tall, whichever comes first. [ UK Car Seat laws ]

Video explanation:

Find out which car seat brands are good to buy here.

Your child can safely ride without a car seat when they pass the following five steps.

You also need to pay attention to the cloths you put on your child particularly rain coats as they can negate the work of a car seat as is demonstrated below.

Remember:

  1. Get a car seat, check to find out if its the correct one in terms in terms of your baby’s body size, weight and age. 
  2. Use the baby car seat at all times when you have a baby in the car.
  3. When shopping for one check for a high quality baby seat preferably UK or US made.
  4. Fit the car seat properly by following the procedure on the seat’s manual.
  5. Never fix the car seat on the front seats.
  6. Tell other parents who are still ignorant of this to read this post.

The right seat, fitted in the right way, and used always  can save your child’s life.

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