Rear-facing is safer!

Experts agree that having the car seat rear-facing for as long as possible (even beyond the first year) is the safest.  It's actually safer for any age; even flight attendants are rear-facing on planes because it's safer!

New studies are showing that children should be rear-facing until the age of 4 (in Sweden, this is required!).  The reason is because the rear-facing seat supports the child's whole body, so the crash force is spread over the child's whole body.  In a front-facing seat, all of the body weight is going forward on the harness, which can cause injury to the head, neck and spine.  Here are some very compelling youtube clips (I borrowed these from Becoming Mamas):

Animation of forward vs. rear facing in a collision (from Sweden where the recommended age for rear facing is 4)

Crash test footage of rear vs. forward facing

A widely circulated video of one family’s campaign for extended rear facing based on their child’s tragedy

Many parents worry that their baby will suffer broken legs in a crash because baby's legs touch the seat back or look cramped when rear-facing.  It's important to remember, though, that in a crash severe enough to break baby's legs, there would also be enough force to cause severe neck injuries if your baby or toddler was forward-facing.  I would much prefer a child with broken legs than a broken spine! 

As far as the position in the car, the middle seat is the safest place for the car seat, in case of a side-impact collision.  If you have 2 children, rear-facing behind the driver and forward-facing in the middle is the safest because a rear-facing seat is better for side-impact collisions (or, of course, 2 rear-facing seats is the absolute safest).   

Ok, so now that we are clear that rear-facing is safer (over 5x safer in the second year of life!), here is the annoying part:  We bought Henry's car seat early on in the pregnancy, before I knew that extended rear-facing was MUCH safer, and Henry is coming close to the rear-facing limits of his seat (9 kg/20 lbs)! It's a no-brainer that we need a new seat, but the problem is that it's only possible to buy a seat that rear-faces up to 12 kg (26 pounds) in this country!  For Henry, this will probably last him until he is 2+ years old (if he stays in the 15th percentile), but what if our next baby is massive?  We'd like for the next baby to use the new seat while Henry front-faces in his old seat.  Hopefully by time the next baby is outgrowing the seat, Australia will have started selling extended rear-facing seats, but if not, we may have to import one from the US (which many people here do)!  Babies are expensive!

Oh yeah, and I would just like to add that all of this information is the same whether you are in a front collision or if you are rear-ended.  The point is that the force of the car is going forwards in both situations.