Baby Bjorn as "car seat"...
 

This is a discussion from the Luxury Hotels forum that best belong here. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxur...l-bangkok.html


I actually think the Baby Bjorn is very safe when applied properly.

I have never ever heard about using a carrying tool like Baby Björn this way and think that it is a big and very dangerous mistake to use Baby Björn as a car seat alternative. I have written the Baby Björn consumer service to ask them and will post their answer as soon as I get it.

Well answered in the appropriate thread. Its strange how OT subjects come up so often in the Luxury thread!

If such usage is as dangerous as I think, I will post my answer anywhere where this is being mentioned no matter how OT it might be, just to make any possible reader aware of it. If I am wrong, I will remove my original comment.

Super dangerous. No way would a flimsy Bjorn hold a baby in a crash. The baby would just rip through the fabric and go flying. A Bjorn is just material and it's attached to the parent, not the frame of the car with no protection on the sides.

An infant should be a rear-facing car seat and there are no safe alternatives.

From Baby Bjorn user manual:

Research regarding Baby Bjorn in a taxi:


The link: http://www.thecarseatlady.com/taxis/using_taxis_8.html (more relevant information about how to protect your baby in a car in the link)

Thank you all for your thoughtful warnings. As I've PM'd Musken, we will reflect on our use of the BabyBjorn in the car.

Thanks for your PM Braniff.

Here the answer from Baby Björn customer service:

Just let me add that not only will the Babybjörn offer no protection for the child, it will also probably rip the arms off the parent...

The safest place for a child is in an approved (US or EU standards are a good baseline) child seat that is PROPERLY installed and a correct fit for your child.

I must say that I was shocked that anyone would think the a baby carrier like a Bjorn could replace a car seat.

But, to credit the OP with something positive by sharing his story about the Bjorn hopefully another FT parent has learned something today.

If you live in a big city without a car there are times when a car seat simply isn't an option. There are therefore a lot of people in NYC who use Bjorns or similar carriers in taxis. When babymicah was little and we used our Ergo carrier a lot, I did it a few times myself and would do it again.

As long as the baby is outside the car seatbelt (the parent should be inside the seatbelt, with the carrier and the baby on the outside so the baby isn't crushed between parent and seatbelt), I believe this is safer in a low-speed accident or short stop than trying to hold a baby in your arms. It's obviously not even close to the safety offered by a properly installed car seat. And the carrier makers are going to tell you not to do it because they don't want a lick of liability if anything bad happens to the kid while he's in a carrier.

But faced with the choice between having the kid completely unrestrained and having the kid restrained in a manner that's less than ideal but will keep him from flying out of my arms when a cabbie hits the brakes hard (and intra-Manhattan rides rarely exceed 30mph), I'll go with the latter until someone can show me that the former is actually safer.

Oh those cabbies can go fast in NYC!!

There is simply no alternative to a car seat in a car. They're too small to go in seat belts. A few products have come out to address this problem but they don't really reach the same safety standards. Tough dilemma for travelling parents... This subject gets discussed a lot among those going on cruises or on AI's. Kind of hard to drag the car seat just for a short hop between the hotel/airport/pier/resort...

Public transport is usually one option, especially in big cities. Seeing if there is a service which provides seats or has integrated ones (but that would only be forward facing) might be second best to using your own seat. Simply ask the cab driver to slow down can help. But I have to be honest, I've been in two slow speed accidents, one just outside JFK on one of those service roads... The force was impressive, even at 20mph. Major damage and injuries can occur at very slow speeds. It's just hard to imagine...

Children don't have to be restrained in taxis until age 7 so it's not outside the law to do this. You wont get in trouble. Kind of scary actually.

I went to NYC with my son and I swore never again. Soon I was pregnant with my second child and instead of a bunch of baby clothes, I asked everyone to pool and they got me a Sit & Stroll when she was born. That was a handy, if expensive and temporary solution that may not suit all situations.

In a car of any kind, the Bjorn wouldn't secure the head, which is what you most want to protect. I'm not sure if the Bjorn (or any carrier) is really safer than putting the baby on the floor (the airline's solution to lap children in a prepared emergency). The baby can escape from the carrier and it could increase injury (i.e. the head jerking back).

Really tough call. Not much information available to the public on this subject. Who would want tragic pictures of their child broadcast or splashed on the web and no one would harass those mourning the loss of a child on the details of how the baby was being transported?? Still, that leaves those of us facing this question in the dark.

Big, big gap in the travel-product market!

I'm glad to see this thread as it finally addresses some of the questions that were left unanswered on another thread in this forum.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...sion-loop.html

Seems to me that the danger posed by using a carrier in a car is very similar to that associated with using an airline seatbelt loop, which I'm required to do in order to travel with a child aged less than 6 months on all the London - Alicante routes.

Also, I've since found out that she can't travel to Luton from London in a car seat - GreenLine/Easybus won't allow us to book a seat for her and the train journey would also involve a stint in a bus.

So the question I've had answered is what are the dangers involved with transporting her with a loop or Beco carrier. Knowing that the lethal blow would most likely be from my chin onto her fontanelle is sobering... but at least I have a better idea now (I thought I'd kill her by sandwiching her between my knees and chest).

Thanks!

Well, having seen videos of how a body, arms, legs and head might move when in an accident, I do not think that this would prevent the baby from being crushed. Here is a link (just puppets, no real people, no baby, but you can imagine): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxfIu...eature=related

All good points. Obviously if you're going to ride in a car and a car seat is available, you should use a car seat.

But again, my question is what is the best option when you have to ride in a car or taxi and a car seat simply isn't available. I can see the advantage of putting the kid on the floor, but that seems rather impractical (I can't imagine my kid being willing to sit on the floor--and in a NYC taxi the risk of catching some disease from sitting on the floor is probably greater than the odds of injury from sitting on parents' laps or in a Bjorn/Ergo type carrier). And I can see the risk of crushing the kid even if he's outside the seat belt, but in a NYC taxi with a floor-to-ceiling hard plastic divider behind the driver, I think the risk of the kid splatting on that divider in just about any crash is a lot worse than the risk that an accident will lead to the exact combination of forces that would have me crush the kid.

Remember that this is all ultimately a numbers game with the goal being minimizing risk (you can never truly eliminate it) and we can't just look at specific risks in isolation. I often read parents saying how they would never let their kid ride in a NYC taxi without a car seat. But honestly what is the alternative? Are you going to live a suburban life where your kid is in a car multiple times every day? If so, your kid is probably way more likely to be injured in a car accident even though he's in a super-safe car seat simply by virtue of being in a car so much more. Are you going to only take public transit? If so, your kid might be at risk of catching airborne diseases, or falling down the stairs in the subway or getting run over by a bus. Are you just going to stay inside all day? I'm not saying any of these alternatives is necessarily better or worse--just saying each one introduces new risks and we have to decide which risks are worth assuming and which are worth avoiding.