National Poll on Children's Health: Parents turning car seats to face forward too early

I was reading about the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. In May, 2011, they surveyed 500 parents about when they turned their child forward-facing. I was kind of surprised by the results.

30% of parents turned their child forward-facing before the age of 1.
27% of parents turned their child forward-facing between 13-15 months.
16% of parents turned their child forward-facing between 16-23 months.
13% of parents turned their child forward-facing after age 2.

I was surprised by both the 30% figure and the 13% figure the most. I know parents turn their kids forward-facing before age 1, but I was shocked it was so high. I've met exactly one parent in real life who rear-faced until 2, so I was astonished (in a good way) to see that 13% of parents are rear-facing until at least 2 or beyond.

I actually kind of wondered if maybe parents misunderstood the question, but it was pretty straightforward. "At what age did you first have your [x-month/year old] child ride in a car seat that faced forward instead of backward?"

The results got some press coverage. I read an article about it the other day from Good Morning America and the Chicago Tribune covered it as well.

What time frame? Did they account for different kids born in different years?
If it's my child born in 2006, the answer was 14 months.

If it's my kids born in 2007, 2009 and 2011, the answer is age 4 or more!
So that's a big difference, all due to education and awareness.

There is a similar article in my paper today, too.

bnsnyde said:

What time frame? Did they account for different kids born in different years?
If it's my child born in 2006, the answer was 14 months.

If it's my kids born in 2007, 2009 and 2011, the answer is age 4 or more!
So that's a big difference, all due to education and awareness.

There is a similar article in my paper today, too.

Click to expand...

The report said that it interviewed parents in May 2011 who had children age 7 to 48 months.

30% doesn't surprise me... the 13% does especially it only included children at least 4 years old at the time- before the "new aap" recs came out.

Hopefully they'll repeat this poll every few years to see how trends change and if the new recommendations are having an impact.

Really, 500 isn't a very large group when you think about it.

500 isn't very large, but it's still definitely significant enough to provide some insight, and absolutely enough to warrant broader study.

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing.

cookie123 said:

Really, 500 isn't a very large group when you think about it.

Click to expand...

If 500 is a random sample then it will represent the population very well. Based on the group doing the survey, I would expect them to use a good sampling method and get reliable results.

I work here at Mott doing Child Passenger Safety, although I did not help conduct this study, I see A Lot of kids still rearfacing after the age of one and some past the age of two. We work Really hard to educate our population here in the two counties that our SafeKids coalition serves about extended rearfacing and most of the doctors in the area do a great job at educating about the rearfacing till 2. I am not sure exactly what areas they conducted the study, but I am seeing way more people rearfacing longer, or new parents who already know that they will need to rearface longer when they come in for their prenatal seat check. We do a lot of Child passenger research here along with UMTRI who does a lot of crash testing. It is really cool to be part of such a progressive hospital.