Saw a preemie in a Primo Viaggio 30 yesterday

When we got to church yesterday we wound up sitting behind a family toting a Primo Viaggio 30 yesterday (in Wave--LOVED the color!!). At one point they turned the car seat around, and the baby inside was TINY! My DD was 8 pounds when she was born, so never as small as the baby in there.

I asked mom after church how old the baby was (she was SO peaceful and slept through the whole Mass) and she said she was 3 weeks old (born at 35 weeks, so that makes her, what, -2 weeks adjusted?) and mom said she's just over 5 pounds (now). My almost 4-year-old kept asking if the baby was a doll.

The seat completely dwarfed the baby. The SIP wings were a good inch or more away from the sides of her head, the bottom slot straps were above her shoulders and the chest clip covered most of her chest/abdomen! I did notice mom had a washcloth folded between the buckle and the baby's bottom to fill the gap in the crotch area.

When a baby goes home from the hospital premature or small, do the hospitals usually check to see what the minimum weight for the seat is? I see the Primo Viaggio is 5 pound minimum, so I guess she was OK.

Not sure about other hospitals but before I brought my son home, 4lbs,8ozs, they did an hour long test in the car seat to make sure he was comfortable and could breathe easy. He passed and I brought him home in an eddie bauer infant seat. That was 5.5 years ago.

Lynne

It sounds like the seat really doesn't fit well at all.

When ds was in the NICU, there was a just under 4lb baby go home in a peg perego. I wasn't as in to carseats at the time, and don't know how he fit the seat, but was shocked he'd be released in that seat at that weight. Apparently policy has changed since then and babies can't go home unless they are at the minimum weight of the seat - if not, they're discharged in a car bed.

I can't see a baby that size fitting well in that seat because of the harness strap covers - I'm amazed the chest clip went up high enough on the seat with the covers being so long and the baby so tiny...

My former co worker used a PP Primo Viaggio for her DD. I believe her DD was just over 4 pounds at discharge, so she too was way too small for the seat. :thumbsdown:

I think all hospital must be different? Like for us with dd who came home at 3lbs 10 oz in an Evenflo Embrace, way too small in terms of weight, but the harness was snug, and the harness did come from below her shoulders. The nurse was the one who secured her in the seat and lectured me on lowering the handle and keeping her car seat time to a minimum, etc. There was no discussion on her weight vs. the minimum listed weight on the seat. And to be honest I was so completely desperate to get her HOME I *almost* didn't care about what seat she was riding in. (yeah, that desperate!)

My personal worry with any newborn has more to do with airway and breathing, though of course proper fit is also a major concern. But I think for so many families it's a matter of cost (and possibly assuming the priciest seat must be the safest? hence a Peg), or on the other hand, not being able to afford much and the nurses know that? (ie: they can't make a less fortunate family purchase an entirely new seat when funds just aren't there). And I know in my case I TOLD the Ped that Sophia would NOT be going home in a rented/used/harness washed 4200 times mystery seat. Period. And of course he was a bit thrown by my insistance, but in the end she passed her challenge test and it was not an issue.

So I think my point is that there really isn't any "protocol" per se... It must be one of those grey areas that vary from hospital to hospital and with family to family. (like when I called the Nicu a few mos later to ask if I could donate the Embrace the social worker gasped and said "Yes! We have families that can't afford any seat and it sometimes holds up discharge and we don't have enough beds as it is").

Now as for the Peg 30, I'm not sure, but I know that the Peg PPSIP is hit and miss with small babies. Some people say it's a great preemie seat, others aren't so sure. And of course (aside from weight) it depends on the baby's torso. I know for us it wouldn't have worked any better than the Embrace. The Embrace was actually the least worst for my peanut.

:twocents:

snowbird25ca said:

I can't see a baby that size fitting well in that seat because of the harness strap covers - I'm amazed the chest clip went up high enough on the seat with the covers being so long and the baby so tiny...

Click to expand...

You know, I'd never seen a Primo Viaggio (either size) used with an infant in-person. I'm not a tech and wasn't familiar with the seat. But now that I think about it, I don't think there were harness strap covers on it. Can they be removed? It definitely was a PV-30.

Hmmmm...Ilana was almost 7# when we tried her in it and it fit her great. I really liked it and assumed it would fit a smaller baby quite well.

mom2juliarose said:

You know, I'd never seen a Primo Viaggio (either size) used with an infant in-person. I'm not a tech and wasn't familiar with the seat. But now that I think about it, I don't think there were harness strap covers on it. Can they be removed? It definitely was a PV-30.

Click to expand...

The Primo Viaggio 30 has the SIP wings doesn't it? I was under the impression that all the new peg infant seats have them...

Here's a link to the current version:
http://trusca.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pTRUCA1-4046440dt.jpg

The harness pads are attached to the seat pad with a crocheted or knit string (not sure which, but it's relatively thin.) There is no way to remove them without snipping the connecting string, at which point you would have to unthread the harness to remove them. You can tell just by looking at the picture how long the harness covers are. They're probably a good 5 or 6" long - lots of after market covers are shorter than these, and we know how they sometimes interfere with positioning of the chest clip on small babies...

snowbird25ca said:

The Primo Viaggio 30 has the SIP wings doesn't it? I was under the impression that all the new peg infant seats have them...

Here's a link to the current version:
http://trusca.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pTRUCA1-4046440dt.jpg

Click to expand...

Yes, there were head wings. And a huge gap between baby's head and the wings. She was SOOOO tiny. She was covered a bit, though, so maybe I just missed the pads? Initially I thought it was a Companion in Aqua, but then saw the Peg Perego logo on the chest clip. Looked it up and it was definitely the 30 in Wave. It was a big seat!

Seth was 4lbs13ozs and they never checked the weight on his snugride. But within 3 days he was back up to 5lbs. He was full term.