Rear Facing Vs. Forward Facing Child Safety Seat Debate

The most common misunderstanding is that a child is ready to travel facing forward when his neck muscles are strong enough to support and control his head. However, when a car hits something at 25 to 30 mph, it will come to a stop at a negative acceleration rate of from 20 to 30 G.  Even the strong neck muscles of young male volunteers cannot counteract such forces. Instead, the rigidity of the bones in the neck and strength of the connecting ligaments, not the muscles, hold the adult spine together and keep the spinal cord intact within the confines of the vertebral column. Very young children have immature vertebrae that are still partly made of cartilage. These are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving just the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. According to documented research, autopsy specimens of infant spines and ligaments allow for spinal column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch.

Another aspect of the facing-direction issue that is often overlooked is the additional benefit a child gains in a side impact. Crash testing and field experience have both shown that the head of a child facing rearward is captured by the child restraint shell in side and frontal-oblique crashes, while that of a forward-facing child may be thrown forward, around, and outside the confines of the side wings. Field data show better outcomes for rear-facing children than forward-facing children, even though most child restraints are not specifically designed to protect children in side impact.

Some older convertible child restranits indicated in their instructions that a child should face forward when her feet touch the vehicle seatback or when the legs must be bent due to lack of space. This prohibition is not justified by any crash experience or any laboratory evidence, and these instructions have now been revised. There have not been any crashes documented in which rear-facing children sustained leg injuries because they were rear-facing. Even if this were the case, broken legs are easier to fix than broken necks. The only physical limit on rear-facing use is when the child’s head approaches the top of the restraint shell. At this point, they should be moved to a rear-facing convertible restrain.

In an international research and crash review conducted in 2004, the data seemed to show a change in outcome at about 12 months between severe consequences and more moderate consequences for the rare events of injury to young children facing forward in a child restraint. At the time, one year old was useful as a simple benchmark, but now the message is to keep the child facing rearward as long as possible within the weight and height limits of the child restraint, possibly until they are 24 months old.