BMJ  2006;333:1205-1206 (9 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39021.657083.47

Practice

Apparently life threatening events in infant car safety seats

¹ New Zealand Cot Death Association, Auckland, New Zealand, ² Starship Children's Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand, ³ Department of Physiology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand, ⁴ Departments of Physiology and Paediatrics, University of Auckland

Young infants should not be left unattended to sleep in standard car safety seats

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Infant car safety seats are vital to protect young infants from injury and death in motor vehicle accidents.¹ Preterm infants and term infants with pre-existing health conditions are at risk of oxygen desaturation and secondary central apnoea while they are restrained in recommended semi-reclining infant car seats.^{2 3} Recent studies have shown that mild oxygen desaturation can affect some full term infants,^{4 5} although others found no effect on average saturation.⁶ None of these studies reported overt apnoea or bradycardia in full term infants during these mild events, but according to anecdotal reports term infants as well as preterm infants have died while in semi-reclined car safety seats.^{7 8}

To further investigate whether or under what circumstances these observations translate to a real risk for healthy full term infants, we prospectively examined all infants referred to the Auckland Cot Monitoring Service after an apparently life threatening event in early infancy.

In the 18 . . . [Full text of this article]

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