Why Rear Facing Car Seat?

Why Rear Facing Car Seat
Why is rear-facing better? –

  1. Rear-facing is still the safest way for children to ride, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics which recently updated their guidelines in 2018.
  2. Every transition actually reduces the amount of protection a child has in the event of a crash. P arents really shouldn’t rush transitioning kids out of rear-facing seats and later, into boosters before they’re ready.
  3. A rear-facing car seat will absorb most of the crash forces and supports the head, neck and spine. When children ride forward-facing, their heads – which for toddlers are disproportionately large and heavy – are thrown forward, possibly resulting in spine and head injuries.
  4. Many car seats manufacturers have created seats that allow children to remain rear-facing until they weigh 40 to 50 pounds. Even many infant-only seats have a higher weight limit to 35 or 40 pounds.
  5. Evidence does not support that children will suffer leg and foot injuries if their feet touch the seat. There are no known harmful effects of riding rear-facing longer, while the benefits of doing so have been observed for years. Children have many ways of making themselves comfortable when facing the rear and can ride safely that way, as long as they haven’t reached the weight or height limit for rear-facing in their seat. For many kids, this could be well past two years. In Sweden, children routinely ride rear-facing until the age of four.

What kind of car seats can be installed rear facing?

Why Extended Rear Facing is So Important

2. Why do I need a rear-facing car seat? – Current guidelines recommend that children remain in rear-facing positions for as long as possible, or at the very least until they reach the age of two. Choosing a seat that allows your child to sit in this position for as long as possible provides them maximum protection in the event of a vehicle impact.

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Why is the rear-facing car seat the best?

Why Rear-Facing Is Safer – Car seats are designed to absorb some crash forces and spread the remaining crash forces over a larger area of the body. For adults, seat belts distribute force to the strongest parts of the body—the hips, chest bone, and collarbone.

When a child is in a forward-facing seat, the head pulls forward, which puts stress on the neck. When rear-facing, the head, neck, and back all move in unison and are cradled by the shell of the rear-facing car seat. The bones running down a young child’s neck and back are not yet solid bone (they still have a lot of stretchy cartilage).

A young child’s head is also much heavier, in proportion to the body, than that of an older child or adult. So the head pulls forward with proportionately much more force on bones that are stretchier. As the bones stretch, they can force the spinal cord to stretch.

After it is stretched more than one-quarter of an inch, the spinal cord breaks. Riding in a rear-facing car seat helps reduce that risk by supporting the child’s head. The incidence of severe head and neck injuries for babies and toddlers is greatly reduced in rear-facing car seats. The additional support the rear-facing car seat provides to the head and neck reduces your child’s chance of being injured or worse in a crash.

The rear-facing car seat is absorbing some of the energy of the crash, and then distributing the remaining energy along the child’s head, neck and back. With the forward-facing child, the car seat isn’t able to absorb as much of the energy, and more of it is transferred to the child—in particular to the head and neck as they pull away from the chest.

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What is the weight limit for a rear facing car seat?

Convertible seats (used rear facing) –

Can be used rear facing and, later, “converted” to forward facing for older children when they outgrow either the weight limit or the length limit for rear facing. This means the seat can be used longer by your child. Convertible seats are bulkier than infant seats, however, and they do not come with carrying handles or separate bases and are designed to stay in the car.Many have higher limits in rear-facing weight (up to 40–50 pounds) and height than those of rear-facing– only seats, a feature that makes convertible seats ideal for bigger babies and toddlers.Have a 5-point harness that attaches at the shoulders, at the hips, and between the legs.Should be used only for a child’s travel (not sleeping, feeding, or any other use outside the vehicle).

Which side of the car seat should my child face?

A Word From Verywell – Crash data shows us that anybody is safer in a crash when riding rear-facing for the reasons outlined above. Young children are better protected in a rear-facing car seat because that seat distributes the force of a crash over a greater body area and gives better support to young heads and necks.

A rear-facing car seat offers the best protection for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and even young school-age kids and should be properly used for as long as possible, to the limits of the car seat. Keeping your child rear-facing to the limit of the seat is the safest choice. You can check your car seat instruction book or the labels on the car seat sides to find the rear-facing weight and height limits.

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Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

  1. Durbin DR, Hoffman BD. Child passenger safety. Policy statement, Pediatrics.2018;142(5) doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2460
  2. American Academy of Pediatrics. Rear–facing car seats for infants and toddlers,
  3. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Seat belt and child seat laws by state,
  4. Durbin DR, Hoffman BD. Child passenger safety. Technical report, Pediatrics.2018;142(5) doi:10.1542/peds.2018-2461
  5. American Academy of Pediatrics. How long should my child ride rear–facing?,
  6. Arbogast KB, Durbin DR. Epidemiology of child motor vehicle crash injuries and fatalities, In: Crandall J, Myers B, Meaney D, Zellers Schmidtke S (eds). Pediatric Injury Biomechanics, Springer, 2013.

By Heather Corley Heather Wootton Corley is a mother, freelance writer and certified Child Passenger Safety Technician-Instructor. Thanks for your feedback!