By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Keeping a child properly buckled in a vehicle can help to keep that child alive, and research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows it. Erin Sauber-Schatz has the numbers on the benefits of safety restraints:
“For babies, car seats have reduced the risk of death by 71 percent. For toddlers age 1 through 4, they’ve reduced the risk of death by 54 percent. And it’s similar with booster seats, compared with seat belts.”
However, she says that in 2011, more than 650 children age 12 and under died as passengers in crashes – more than 12 children a week. She says it’s important to use age- and size-appropriate restraints, and use them correctly.
A study on child deaths in crashes is in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.