Is rear facing top tethered more safe?

[2mykids]

I had been under the impression that top tethering rear facing (Available from Britax on a couple of their seats.) was safer than no top tether.
I have recently heard an opinion from a state trooper and a car seat tech that top tethering is less safe. But neither one of them had a good explanation as to why they thought that way.

Opinions? Statistics? Facts?

[joolsplus3]

Yes, it's absolutely safe. Here's the most reasoned commentary we have on the subject to see where the controversy may lie http://www.carseat.org/Technical/tech_update.htm#toptetherRF

(disclaimer, of course only seats that allow RF tethering should be tethered rearfacing...Britax and Sunshine Kids are currently the only ones)

:)

[LISmama810]

I'm sort of on the fence about RF tethering. I had a discussion about it with one of the people from SafetyBeltSafe a few weeks ago, and it's one of those things that doesn't necessarily have a "right" answer. Her response was very similar to what's in the website link above (which makes sense, since it's their site!)

The RF tether has the benefit of keeping a restraint from cocooning into the seatback, but has the downside of increasing neck loads. She said that for a smaller/younger child (with big heads/poor neck control), it might be better not to tether, so the seat moves with the child. For an older child, the tether is probably better to keep the child from slamming into the back seat.

RF seats are safe regardless of whether a tether is used. Is one SAFER than the other? I don't know.

[tcottawa]

I am on the fence as well...I will say that with top-tethering, at least you are tethering to an approved, independently tested spot,meant for tethering, as opposed to tethering to the vehicle seat in front of you.

[SingleMomTo2Girls]

I always tethered my girl's Britax convertible seats while rear facing. With future children, I'd probably leave it untethered for a few months to prevent any strain on the neck. I figure infant seats are designed to rebound for a reason. :) (Then again the child would be in a Graco Safe Seat for like a year anyways.)

I think a very well installed RF seat is extremely safe with or without the tether. My belief in this was strengthened when my friend was in a serious accident with her daughter in her RF Marathon. There was nowhere to tether it in that vehicle but my friend gets her car seats in VERY tightly. There were several people who felt much better about not tethering after this accident.

http://myangelsaliandpeanut.tripod.com/id5.html

However I think that the RF tether adds stability and prevents rebounding. So if possible I would do it once the child was a year old. I definitely don't think it's dangerous to tether before either. I would just be more cautious because I already have a child with an instability in the neck. So until future children could be checked for that, not tethering when they are babies would be a precaution I would personally take.

A well installed, correctly used, 5 point harness seat used rear facing is going to be very safe whether you tether rear facing or not. :)

[aisraeltax]

thanks for this thread. i had no idea there was a controversy. For now, after reading what I have read here, i think i will take the prudent approach (at least to me) and not tether RF'ing the first year and then tether afterwards (i am currently tethering RF'ing for a 27 month old).

great thread!:thumbsup:

[joolsplus3]

:thumbsup: I definitely have had no qualms about using an infant seat as long as it fit (19 months) and a Cosco Scenera as a backup seat (no top tether)...

[CRS]

totally irrelevant to the thread at hand but I guess that's one reason my swedish seats have the tethers near the bottom, can't see them increasing neck loads that way!

[SingleMomTo2Girls]

My understanding is that it's the rebounding that reduces the neck load. There is NO way a correctly installed swedish seat is going to rebound. So I'm thinking the same concept would still apply, just not to quite the same degree.

[joolsplus3]

Here's what US/Swedish tethering looks like... http://www.esnips.com/doc/f7c18149-9f4a-4e32-b0be-e366982367fc/swedish The greatest force is in the first part, when the seat goes back...when the seat rebounds the speed and force are much lower, similar to the kiddo just looking down really fast.

[lizajane30]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but this is definitely of interest to me as I plan to use our Britax RA for our newborn in October.

My question is, how can you get a 45* angle if you don't tether RF? I've never been able to get our RA to 45* in any car, but especially ours (96 Corolla wagon--the backseat itself has about a 10* backwards tilt) without pulling it back with the tether, even using a pool noodle or other bolster.

Thing is, when you sit any Britax seat on the ground (i.e. the base is horizontal as per instruction manual) and have it in the reclined position, it is not at a 45* angle, so how could it be so in the car without the tether to pull it back? It's something I've been wondering about recently since installing my niece's RA in my brother's Subaru (which has much flatter seats than our car). I had to really crank that baby down, but then I read that it's not good to put that much strain on the tether so I bought a triangular foam positioner thingy recommended by a tech on this site. Even so, I did have to pull it back with the tether somewhat.

Am I making sense here? Am I doing something wrong with my installations? Now I think about it, I guess we couldn't get even the 30* angle we have with DS' BLVD unless we use the tether.

-Linda

[Mama!]

With a pyramid of pool noodles tightly taped together, I dont see why you wouldn't be able to get a 45 degree angle for a newborn. If your backseats are super deep and slanted, you may have no choice.

I'm sure a tech will tell you what to do. Have you tried the big super fat pool noodles? One of those might do better than a small one.

[joolsplus3]

Britax fully approves tethering for ALL ages. I would personally tether it. Not only does Australia have infant capsules that don't move *at all* in a crash (giving me pause in thinking rebound is so great), they've had them for decades and if there were wee babies with neck injuries, they wouldn't do it. But also consider a bad side impact...an untethered seat is going to move a lot more...like this one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yV3gO0dftE&feature=related Now, it's still 'safe enough', but given that there's no evidence that tethered RF infants are UNsafe, I'd err on the side of safEST and use the seat as the manual directs: Britax always recommends using the top tether :)

[joolsplus3]

She tried the foam leveler that last time http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2343250 it's way better than any noodles (hence the insanely high price for a hunk of foam <choke>...). But Linda, you know it can be rotated up or down to get the amount of height you need? Not sure if that would have helped...

[lizajane30]

The noodle we used to use is very fat, something given to me by highway patrol when I got my RA checked once years ago. I don't think it's an actual pool noodle, it's much denser and larger in diameter. Now we use the same triangular wedge we got for my niece's seat. It's like this one (http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2343250), but it's not this exact one...I think ours is made by Prince Lionheart or something. Oops, Jools, we posted at the same time! It's at the highest position already.

We'll have an Odyssey by the time the baby arrives, so we'll have to figure the whole thing out for that vehicle instead of the Corolla anyway. But I wondered because I've been told that one shouldn't need a noodle for a Britax, but my experience in all the cars I've installed ours in (three sets of grandparents' cars, various friends' cars, etc.) has been that you can't get 45* without one unless you use the tether to pull back. I've been installing this seat for 5 years now, and was a nanny for Britax-using families for many years before that, so I've done my share of installations in different cars. I sure hope I haven't been doing it totally wrong for all this time!

[lizajane30]

Britax fully approves tethering for ALL ages. I would personally tether it. But also consider a bad side impact...an untethered seat is going to move a lot more...like this one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yV3gO0dftE&feature=related

After watching that, we will tether our RF seats for sure.

[aisraeltax]

Im glad that I came back to this thread. now im even more confused!!!!

[o_mom]

For a technical analysis.... http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/esv/esv19/05-0346-O.pdf

"CONCLUSIONS
The results provide evidence that use of a
Swedish tether causes a positive but small benefit on
the injury risk to children in RFCRs in frontal crashes.
The advantage of tethers during installation and
possibly in other crash types (side impacts, rollovers)
suggests that the use of Swedish tethers in RFCR
could be beneficial. Further work is needed to
consider issues such as misuse, tether anchors, and
the effect in other crash modes."

[2mykids]

For a technical analysis.... http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/esv/esv19/05-0346-O.pdf

"CONCLUSIONS
The results provide evidence that use of a
Swedish tether causes a positive but small benefit on
the injury risk to children in RFCRs in frontal crashes.
The advantage of tethers during installation and
possibly in other crash types (side impacts, rollovers)
suggests that the use of Swedish tethers in RFCR
could be beneficial. Further work is needed to
consider issues such as misuse, tether anchors, and
the effect in other crash modes."

Thank you, great info.

[aisraeltax]

For a technical analysis.... http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/esv/esv19/05-0346-O.pdf

"CONCLUSIONS
The results provide evidence that use of a
Swedish tether causes a positive but small benefit on
the injury risk to children in RFCRs in frontal crashes.
The advantage of tethers during installation and
possibly in other crash types (side impacts, rollovers)
suggests that the use of Swedish tethers in RFCR
could be beneficial. Further work is needed to
consider issues such as misuse, tether anchors, and
the effect in other crash modes."

thank you! thank you!