With today’s blog, I hope to bring awareness to an infant car seat that, in my opinion, is unsafe. Take a look at the photo accompanying today’s blog. In it is pictured Makaila sitting in what was her newborn car seat. Notice how her head is hanging forward.
That was what happened when we put the car seat in the backseat of my daughter’s 2008 Ford Escape. Was anything wrong with the car? No. The problem originated as a result that there is no way to level the car seat to that of the vehicle. And so, when its base is secured in with a seatbelt, the car seat’s back is tilted up at an angel towards the rear of the car. This results in the infant’s head being hung forward, the only thing holding them in the seat, the straps.
Now, I know it’s been a bit since I had infants of my own, but I have gone through three newborn and five big kid car seats in my time, and I can honestly say that I have never had any of those throw the head of my infants forward. To me, that just seems counter-productive to keeping the infant safe.
So, one of the to-do things on our list today was to return said car seat, a travel system stroller and newborn car seat combo manufactured by Safety First, to the store where it was purchased. Me, being me, I called the store first to let them know we were bringing it in and why. I was transferred to a store supervising manager who, when I mentioned that the infant’s head was hanging forward, had no concern. In fact, she sounded rather disturbed that I’d be bothering her with such a “trivial” matter. Her main concern was that, although I had the receipt and all the paperwork, since I didn’t have the box, she told me she couldn’t return it.
Well…as you can imagine, that didn’t go over too well with me. So I reiterated that the reason we were returning the item was that it was unsafe. By the end of our conversation, the woman had only agreed that they would exchange it for another.
Yeah, fat chance we were going that route again!
A short time later, we arrived at the store and went to the return counter where I explained to the sales girl why we were returning the item. She told us that she completely understood. That her newborn’s car seat had done the same thing, and she had retuned it as a result!
Okay, so it’s not just me thinking this is unsafe.
Anyhow, the woman overrode her boss’ instructions to only give me credit for another one and gave me a full refund, which we took to another store where we purchased an actual safe Travel System Newborn Car Seat and Stroller by another manufacturer.
Yeah! Baby Makaila will now be safe while driving around in the car!
A little background here. My husband and I are big on car seat safety. When our oldest son was eight months old and my girlfriend’s daughter was nine months old, we were all in a terrible car accident. The car seats, both identical top-of-the-line in safety standards, did their job. Although they were destroyed in the accident, both babies came away from the experience without injuries! That incident convinced me to never skimp on car seat safety. And when I saw Makaila’s original car seat allowing her head to hang forward, I just couldn’t stand by and let her be put at risk.
What person could?
My hope is that by writing this blog, I can generate awareness for parents to avoid purchasing the Newborn Car Seat and Stroller Travel Combo System, manufactured by Safety First. I’m so grateful that I was present to see that there was a problem with the car seat. I wonder how many new parents, assuming that the manufacturer would produce a product that would keep infants safe, have unknowingly put their infants at possible risk with this item.
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