Cold and Silly Vs. Cold and Dead. Choose Safety over Inconvenience this Winter.

By: Jennifer Geiringer, Chief Marketing Officer

This week, most of the country got its first taste of freezing temperatures. As winter sets in, we will bundle our kids in warm bulky gear, buckle them into their car seats and head off to school and activities. Many parents are unaware that in doing this, we are putting our kids at risk and endangering their lives

Safety experts recommend NOT using winter coats underneath the harness of a car seat. Why? Bulky fabrics can make the harness too loose to be effective in a crash, increasing the likelihood of ejection in an accident.  If your child is ejected in an accident, their risk of death is 5 times greater.

A recent study published in the US National Library of Medicine, suggests that ejection due to improper restraint accounted for 88% of child and infant fatalities, making it the primary cause of death in children involved in the study.  Infants and children 0-4 years accounted for the majority of all deaths.  Another study found that two-thirds of all mortalities were attributed to occupant ejection from the vehicle.

As parents, keeping our children safe is our number one goal, right?  We want to protect our kids from the winter temperatures and keep them safe in the car.  We can accomplish both by removing our children’s coat to buckle them in, then resting the coat over them or putting it on backwards.  You can also keep a blanket in the car to keep them warm.  

I can hear parent complaints, even as I write this:  “The car is freezing when we get in, I don’t want to take my kid’s coat off” or “having to put my kid’s coats on and take them off every time we get out of the car is annoying and time consuming”.  I get it, it’s not ideal, however citing these excuses and leaving the coats on may save a little time and energy,  but it DOES NOT save our children’s lives

There are ways to make safety easier.  For the parent, there are really no ways around the extra steps. To put it bluntly, the process puts your child’s life before your inconvenience; it’s no brainer, right?  For your children, I recommend that you first warm up the car by manually starting it or installing a remote car starter, prior to putting the kids in.  Next, put your child’s coat on backwards on the way out to the car, so you only have to pull it off for a couple seconds while buckling; then put it back on backwards. Finally, leave the car running while unbuckling and put coats on to exit the car or, if you choose to turn the car off, simply pull the coat off, unbuckle, and put the coat on backwards again to walk into your destination.

Will your child be cold for a few seconds?  Possibly. Will they look silly walking around with a backwards coat on? Definitely.  But I’ll take cold and silly looking over cold and dead any day of the week!  Wouldn’t you?