Car safety seats best for toddlers, study confirms

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For children 2 to 3 years of age riding in the back of passenger vehicles, child safety seats offer greater protection than lap-shoulder restraints, researchers report, based on 7-year crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

They conclude from their findings, reported in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, that "laws requiring that children younger than 4 years travel in child safety seats have a sound basis and should remain in force."

In 2005, a research group published a "working paper," which suggested that lap-shoulder safety belts were as protective as child safety seats for children aged 2 to 6 years and were far less expensive.

However, to the contrary, the crash data collected and analyzed by Dr. Eduard Zaloshnja of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Calverton, Maryland and others, indicate that children 2 to 3 years have an 80 percent lower odds of being injured in child safety seats than lap-shoulder belts.

Child safety seats retained an advantage over lap belts for 2- to 3-year-olds regardless of vehicle characteristics, crash characteristics, and crash severity.

The investigators say their findings are consistent with those of prior studies showing that, compared to lap belts, child safety seats are associated with a 78 percent lower odds of serious injury for 1- to 4-year-old children, with a 28 percent reduction in the risk of death for 2- to 6-year olds, and with a 75 percent lower risk of serious injury for 2- to 3-year-olds.

These findings, Zaloshnja and colleagues conclude, "largely lay to rest" concerns raised by the 2005 report. "We believe (our findings) are reasonably definitive; they confirm that, as their designers intended, child safety seats offer children aged 2 to 3 years greater protection than safety belts," they write.

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, January 2007.