Myths about rear facing car seats...

You don't need a rear-facing car seat. You actually probably don't need a car seat at all.

Here are the number of children that die every year in the UK:

People who say that we should all buy rear facing seats are talking about children up to the age of 4, so that's 4065 deaths a year. Now, how many of them could have been avoided if we all had rear facing seats? I wonder...

Look, another handy graphic! Look at the causes of those deaths:

This handy graph will show you the extent of the problem. 0% of babies die in road traffic accidents. Mmmkay (well most of them have rear facing seats don't they?) and 15% of 1-4 year olds that die per year do so because of 'external factors', which includes road traffic. So of the 3.5 million children in the UK (England and Wales 2011 Office of National Statistics) 4065 of them died, which is 0.116% of them.

What we're looking at is 3.5 (ish) million children, of which 85 died due to 'external circumstances'. That's 0.0024% of children. 

How many of those were road traffic related? well let's have another graphic shall we?

This many. children up to the age of 4 in one year that died in road traffic related accidents constitute  3 deaths a year. THREE. 

Even assuming that all three of those deaths could have been prevented by having a rear facing car seat (which is VERY unlikely) that means that the number of lives a year in the UK that could be saved by everyone having a rear facing car seat is 3. THREE. 

All these people are campaigning to save the lives of 0.0000857% of children under 5 in the UK:

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/

http://incarsafetycentre.co.uk/category/extended-rear-facing/

http://www.rearfacingtoddlers.com/

https://erfmission.wordpress.com/tag/rear-facing-car-seat/

I could go on but it would take forever to list them all. This stuff comes up on my facebook feed all the time. It's quite a big thing. the campaign...not the issue.

I'm not saying that rear facing car seats aren't safer. They evidently are. (500% safer according to one blog) (I mean, if you plan on having a high speed head-on collision, definitely get one)

I'm not saying that the children whose lives were lost in car accidents aren't a terrible and tragic waste. They obviously are.

I'm just saying that caring THAT much about hassling strangers about what car seat they use, when investing in one is betting on your child being one of the 0.0000857% of children who POSSIBLY could be saved by having a rear facing car seat instead of a forward facing one is totally insane. 

So what should we worry about instead?

Almost all the top preventable causes of death in the UK are linked to low socio-economic status. 

Children die more when they are poor. 

There is worse maternal health, more premature birth, more disease, more accidents and more intentional harm in poor families than there is in rich families. 

The average price of a rear facing car seat in the UK that I could find was well over £200. maybe I was looking in the wrong places. you can get a forward facing car seat for less than £50. 

Maybe if we used that extra money to help children actually at risk, start a toy library, give a donation to a kids club, campaign to stop the closure of the Surestart centres and more extensive funding for good quality childcare, trying to fight for better wages for early years carers so that the profession can attract more competent and well-qualified staff, better provision for family support that isn't punitive, better funding for social services so that they can actually help poor families learn the skills they need to help their children, yknow, not die, instead of just scolding them for not being able to do something they've never been shown how to do (it is nuts when you think about it). 

Maybe then you could make an ACTUAL difference to the number of preventable child deaths in the UK.

Buying your own child a rear-facing child seat is fine, if that's what you want to do then go for it. But please oh please stop telling the world about it, stop telling everyone that they're putting their child at risk by not doing it, stop falling for the fear-mongering hype of ill-disguised advertising campaigns. 

Keep it to yourself, make your choices and let everyone else make theirs.

(I often sound like I'm really intolerant. I'm not, apart from of intolerance...it's the only thing I cannot stand. Like, I'm seriously not saying you should buy or not buy anything in particular, I don't care if you breast feed or wean early or feed your kid sweets all day long. I'm pro choice and pro education. I hate advertising, I hate the culture of fear it creates and I hate people being judgemental of the choices of others because they differ from one's own. Lots of what you see online that looks like it's educational is actually advertising. Look at those websites above promoting the safety of rear facing car seats...see how the people who make them advertise all over their page? They get paid for that you know. A lot of pages about rear facing are both "informative" as well as created by the people who make and sell the car seats. Just, be a bit critical when you're reading. A reliable source is one that has nothing to gain through being believed. Like me. Peace and love people, peace and love.)