chest clip too low???

I need to send a message to my BIL about car seats and why he needs to keep my niece rear-facing in her car seat. My SIL passed away suddenly about 2 weeks ago and my neice turned 1 year old less than a week later. I had been trying to teach my SIL about ERF, but now I need to share information and links with my BIL.

My DH went for the funeral and took some pictures of my niece in her carseat. I immediately noticed that the chest clip was too low and he said he kept having to put it in the right position. So I also need to send my BIL some information about this.

So my question - what would happen to a child in an accident if the chest clip was positioned too low? I'm also thinking that the risks from having the chest clip too low are even greater ff than rf - even though I know the primary concern with ff is the head/neck injuries.

If I get permission from my BIL, I'll post a picture of my niece here and get some feedback. They are living in the Philippines for BIL's job so I can't connect him with a local CPST. My DH said that my niece's grandma said they just hold kids in the car and pray so I also need to make sure BIL educates his MIL!

Melanie

Can you send him one of the USAA car seat brochure?
(https://www.usaaedfoundation.org/default.asp. Go down to #544 Installing child safety seats. You can order up to 100 for free). That won't address the ERF thing too specifically, but the chest clip thing is addressed over and over.

Wow, I'm so sorry. If I'm reading this correctly, this is a man that lost his wife about 2wks ago? If that's the case, I'd tread carefully with offering too much info right now. He's probably so overwhelmed already. Maybe just a simple email that says you had been talking to his wife about some car seat stuff, and that you just wanted to remind him not to turn his little girl yet. I absolutely wouldn't offer anything that talks about traumatic injury, death, or otherwise. That would be inappropriate IMO. I may even just email him and let him know that if he has any questions about his dd's car seat you'd be happy to help... not really offering any unsolicited advice at all. :twocents:

Oh, that poor man

I agree with angie.

OP here.

I wasn't going to offer too much information right now, but I wanted to make sure that my niece is safe in her car seat too.

When my DH was there, at one point they had the Britax Boulevard installed ff with the belt through the rf path. My DH was going to fix it and he figured the easy (and safe fix) was to just put the car seat back rf. After losing my SIL so suddenly, I don't want anything to happen to her baby.

Melanie