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Nemours Safety Store
Car Safety for Children:
The Nemours Safety Store is proud to offer low-cost safety products along with injury prevention education to the community. We have booster and safety seats available for purchase.
More than 1,300 children ages 14 and under died as passengers in motor vehicle crashes during 2009 in the U.S.; approximately 179,000 were injured, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Another study found that more than 618,000 children under age 12 rode in vehicles without the use of a child safety car seat, booster seat or a seat belt at least some of the time during the course of one year.
It is critical to ensure your child’s car seat is correctly installed and to make sure it's used every time they ride in a vehicle. Unfortunately, statistics show that over 85% of child car safety seats are installed improperly. Thanks to the generous support of Kohl’s Cares®, the Nemours Injury Prevention team has put together a series of Child Passenger Safety videos for families and caregivers.
What You Should Know About Child Passenger Safety
The back seat is the safest place for a child to be. It is estimated that children ages 12 and under are 36% less likely to die in a crash if they are in the back seat.
Accept a used child car seat with caution. Never accept a seat that’s more than 7 years old or one that was in a crash (even if it looks OK). Avoid seats with obvious wear and tear, missing parts or lacking the manufacturer’s date and model number (you’ll have no way to know about recalls). Also, check the seat for the manufacturer’s recommended “expiration date.”
To make sure your child is properly secured in their seat every time they ride in your vehicle, follow these car seat guidelines:
The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends keeping children in a rear-facing car seat up to age 2, or as long as the child fits the seat. This would be either by weight (according to the seat’s manufacturer specifications) or by height (when the top of the child’s head is one inch below the top of the seat). Your child is 75% less likely to have a serious injury in a crash if he or she is rear-facing.
When a child has outgrown the rear-facing limits, you can turn the child around to forward-facing. The AAP guidelines state that children stay in a child safety seat until at least age four or until he or she outgrows it by either height or weight.
With both the rear-facing and forward-facing car seats, be sure your child is buckled correctly every time: harness straps untwisted, the chest clip positioned at armpit level, and the harness secured properly into the buckle.
Booster seats are ideal for older children who haven’t grown enough to safely use the vehicle seat belts yet (under 4-foot-9 and/or under 80 pounds), but have outgrown their forward-facing car seats. Be sure that the seat you choose fits your child; a smaller child can slip out of a seat that’s too large.
Kids can start wearing a regular seatbelt when they can easily rest their back against the seat of the car and bend their knees over the edge of the seat. Usually, this happens when kids are 8-12 years old and around 4-foot-9. Make sure the lap belt fits comfortably across the thighs (not the stomach) and that your child is not slouching. The shoulder strap should go across the chest and shoulder, and never goes beneath a child's arm, behind the back, or across the neck. Seatbelts must be worn correctly for them to work properly.
Child Safety Seat Video Series
In this series of videos, Injury Prevention Specialist Sean Elwell, RN, shows you how to properly use a car seat, check the car seat’s fitting, and keep your child as safe as possible while riding in a car.
Safety Seat Inspections
Ensuring your child's car seat is correctly installed is critical to his or her safety. Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Seat inspections are offered at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. A nationally certified technician will help explain how to properly install your child’s car seat, free of charge.
Kohl's Healthy Kids Child Passenger Safety Station
When: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays; Appointment is required.
Where: The duPont Hospital for Children Parking Garage
Get Map & Directions
To schedule an appointment or for more information:
Call (302) 651-5437
Directions to the duPont Hospital for Children Parking Garage
At the main gate of the hospital, turn left. Continue on Rockland Road until you reach the blinking red light in front of the Ronald McDonald House. Turn right at this light.
Continue along the road as it makes a bend to the right. Turn right at the Child Passenger Seat Check sign (on your right) before the stone wall. The employee garage will now be directly in front of you. Drive straight into the garage, following the signs, until you reach the orange cones. The child passenger safety station is on your right.
Learn More About Child Passenger Safety
Trusted insights from KidsHealth.org, the #1 most viewed health site for children, created by the experts at Nemours.
