Natalie Gross 00:06
Many hospitals won't let you take your new baby home without first inspecting an important piece of baby gear: the carseat. A nurse will often check the expiration date and make sure the straps are tight enough to keep baby safe. Today we're talking all things car seat safety with an expert and moms who have done the research and are here to share their tips and experiences with you. This is Newbies.

Natalie Gross 00:35
Welcome to Newbies, everyone. Newbies is your online on the go support group guiding new mothers through their baby's first year. I'm Natalie Gross. I have a three year old boy and a baby girl. And we've got such a great show for you today talking about car seat safety. Now if you haven't already, be sure to visit our website that's newmommymedia.com where you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter. And that keeps you updated on all the episodes that we release each week. Another great way to stay updated is to hit that subscribe button and your podcast app. And if you're looking for a way to get even more involved with our show, then check out our membership club called Mighty Moms. That's where we chat more about the topics discussed here on the show. And it's also an easy way to learn about our upcoming recording so that maybe you can join us live. I'd like to introduce our panel of mom guests who are with us today we have moms Hillary, Amber and Angela and we'll also be meeting our expert child passenger safety technician Greg Durocher. A little later on in the show. So mamas, thank you so much for being here. I'd love to kick it off with some introductions telling us a little bit about you, your family and experience with today's topic as we get started. So let's start with Amber.

Amber Brown 02:06
Hey, good morning. My name is Amber Brown. I have been married to my husband Wade, it will be 10 years this October. He is a firefighter and paramedic and so he kind of got us kicked off into the car seat safety world. But my eldest is Emmy. She will be seven in May. Rowan is my middle. He's four and then our youngest Jule. She just turned two at the end of January.

Natalie Gross 02:32
Awesome. Amber, thanks so much for being here. Hillary. What about you?

Hillary Renner 02:36
Hi, everyone. My name is Hillary Renner. I am married to Tim. And we have been married 10 years in November actually. We live in North Georgia right now we have a three year old whose name is Ellie, and a one year old named Lena. I am a nurse. I specialize in trauma. And I've done a lot with carseat safety at some pretty big children's hospitals in the country. So obviously my my biggest experience is actually with my girls being a mom and like using them every single day. I want to leave my house. So anyway, yeah. I'm excited to be here to talk with you all about it.

Natalie Gross 03:14
Great. I love that perspective. Angela, I know you're pretty invested in this topic, too. So let's hear it.

Angela Campos 03:20
Yeah. My name is Angela. And I've been married to my husband, Nick for 10 years last year. And we have three kids. My oldest is almost nine. And then I have a five year old and a almost one year old. I don't know I'm trying to pretend like he's not almost one. So yeah, the three kids, and I'm also a pediatric nurse and I am a child passenger safety technician and I work at a large pediatric hospital in our injury prevention program. So pretty much all I do is car seats all the time.

Natalie Gross 03:57
Well, when you first found out that you were expecting your baby and you were making a baby registry, how much research would you say that you did on car seats? And if so what specifics were you looking for? I'll let anyone take that who wants to?

04:10
I can go. So honestly, I was super overwhelmed. When it came to anything, baby really, just because there's so much out there. And of course, like the marketing people are just trying to sell their stuff to you. So you try to figure out what's important. And what's important to you, but it's really hard to like parse through all of that information. And especially if you're trying to not spend a bajillion dollars on it like it's it can be really hard. So when I was expecting le I did a ton of research and talk with our Carsey safety people at the hospital I was working on at the time. They actually referred me to a website and it really helped me kind of, like narrow it down to what I wanted. The website was called baby gear lab.com Um, for anyone who wants to look and they have, like, you can choose the most important things to you. Like, obviously, safety was super important to me. But I also wanted to not spend an arm and a leg. So you can set your price point and compare them, like, you know, comes in different colors and comes with other bases. And you can use a stroller with it, or you know, like, that kind of thing. And we really needed mobility with our, with our car seat to, we lived in the city at the time. So either we were walking everywhere, or we were driving, and parking and then still walking a considerable distance. So we needed something that was going to easily like clip into strollers and that kind of thing. So I also had heard like, a lot of other moms talk about, like how their kids, like went through four or five car seats before your baby was happy in one. And I learned a little bit more about that later. But you hear that from people. And when you're first looking, you're like, how am I supposed to know what my baby's gonna want? They're not even born yet. So yeah. When you hear that, though, it's kind of scary, because you just don't want to get the wrong thing.

Natalie Gross 06:12
Yeah, for sure.

Amber Brown 06:14
Yeah I think one of the things for us. Probably on a negative side, it was more about convenience. Because when we had our first it was going to be a, we need a car seat that has a base so that it can go in my mom's car in my mother in law's car in my car in my sister's car. Because it was kind of like that, it takes a village with our first. And so safety wasn't a first priority for us. It was figuring out what would work best for our family. But then as she got bigger, and we understood more about carseat safety became like our first priority after she grew out of that infancy and going to that next step of Hey, where's what five point? Do we need? Does it convert into a booster and all of those questions, but at first? Yeah, we just were new parents. And I had worked with kids a lot. But not in the travel realm. I had never put a baby in a car seat before or a toddler in a car seat before. And so it wasn't something that I was really focused on. I was more worried about breastfeeding. And I was worried about like, how am I going to get my baby sleep through the night? And is this bassinet, okay. And it wasn't something that was really, I guess, that we were thinking about as much which sounds so crazy now. Because you're like, oh, my gosh, cars, you know, there's so many things that could happen. But I guess I just took it for granted that what's on the market was fine. And it didn't matter. You know, kind of what what we were getting. But now I know better. So we do better.

Natalie Gross 07:51
Yeah, I think a lot of new parents feel that way. Amber, so don't feel bad. Angela, any thoughts?

Angela Campos 07:58
Yeah, so what I had my oldest is kind of when I got into like the whole car seat safety thing, because I was not a child passenger safety technician until he was almost two. But he was like my, like launch point. So I had a really good friend who's also a nurse that worked with me. And she had done a lot of research on car seats in college as part of her like, school project. And so she was like, started teaching me all these things that you don't really realize, as a new mom, about like, you know, infancy, it's have bases, but you can use the seat without the base. But sometimes that's not always as convenient. Especially if you know grandma's doing it, it's not as easy for her. So you might want to base for her car. And then, you know, we were looking at things like we didn't want it to be super heavy. We wanted it to snap on the stroller that we wanted that kind of thing. But that was when I really started to realize, you know, I think a lot of people have this misconception that Oh, like the nurses at the hospital will tell me how to do but let me tell you, they don't teach you that stuff in nursing school. Like I think we had like a five minute little paragraph discussion about car seats in our pediatrics class. And that was it. So don't I think my biggest takeaway as a first time mom was like, Don't rely on other people to teach you how to use your seat. When the baby comes. Like you've got to seek that out ahead of time. And so that's something that I really, like try to drive home to new families that I'm working with is like I'm so glad you made an appointment and we're gonna go over all this because it's a lot to take in. But yeah, that he was really my driving point for getting into car seats.

Natalie Gross 09:55
Yeah, well, you started answering my next question, which was, what are some things that you wish You knew about car seats or car seat safety as a new parents. So Angela, that's a perfect segue there any thoughts? Anyone else?

Amber Brown 10:06
I think for us, right before me was born, I guess, we I had seen a segment on the Today show about coats and car seats. And y'all, it scared me. And it was showed a baby or, I mean, it was not a real baby, the little dummy in a puffy coat. And the they strapped it in. And it seems like it's the straps are tight. And then of course, they do the safety test and the dummy flies out of the car seat. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And so I now I say that, I definitely stand up and tell people, Hey, make sure you take your kid out of the coat, it was a big thing with my in laws and with my parents, like, hey, please take them out of their coat before you strap them in. And I think that was a huge one for me. But then also the tightness of the straps in where the clips are placed. So I'm a Family pastor, and I have new families come in with babies in car seats all the time. And when they load them up to take them home. That is where I try to be as nice as I possibly can. And I help them say, Hey, I just want you guys to note, they're kind of loose in their seat. And I you know, if if this is loose right here, you know, their shoulder could get out and hey, this clip needs to be right here lined up with their armpits. And so for me, it was just things that I didn't know early on again, because I'd never put a baby in a car seat. And that's not one of the things that that you get taught in your birthing class. Right? You don't get they don't teach you the things after words. So I think for me, those are the two big things is the coat and then strap placement and tightness.

Natalie Gross 11:47
Yeah, those are good.

Hillary Renner 11:48
Yeah, I agree with that. And my oldest was born in October, and we walked everywhere. So usually I had her in her car seat clipped into a stroller. Um, so yeah, how to keep her warm in that car seat without a coat on. Like my teeny tiny little itty bitty newborn. I was putting like 73 blankets on, which is awesome. But I definitely did like, now I look back and I'm like, oh, yeah, everybody does that. But the chests are important. And I think also like how to lovingly correct people on how to, like place the chess club when it's your kid is can be really hard. And like talking to them about proper carseat use. Specifically, I can remember one time in my in laws, and they were like taking me to a park. And so I was talking to my mother in law about you know, how to where to clip it and how to secure and she's like, oh, yeah, you put it up around her neck. And I was like, no, please. Like, please don't put it around her neck. Um, but yeah, like those kinds of perceptions. And you know, now, like you said, Now we know better, so we do better. So like how to communicate that to people? Well, in order to advocate for your own child safety and for other kids, too.

Amber Brown 13:03
Yeah, I've definitely sent a few passive aggressive text messages like, Hey, you guys should watch this video about car seat safety or, Hey, look at these pictures of where you're supposed to place everything and clip everything. We've definitely done that a few times.

Natalie Gross 13:18
Yeah. Well, thank you, moms so much for sharing your experiences. We're gonna take a quick break. And when we come back listeners, I'll be talking with our featured expert, Greg Durocher. So stay tuned.

Natalie Gross 13:35
Today on Newbies, we are talking about car seat safety, and I'm talking with Greg Durocher now. He's a father of three child passenger safety technician and the founder and CEO of Safe Ride 4 Kids. Greg also spent more than 15 years as a firefighter and paramedic. So Greg, thanks so much for being here.

Greg Durocher 13:51
Hey, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Natalie Gross 13:54
So one of the first things we learned about car seat safety is that babies should start out rear facing in the car. Can you explain how that's safer than them facing forward?

Greg Durocher 14:03
Yes. So the reason that rear facing versus forward facing is preferred and a safer way to travel is statistically the most common crash is a forward impact because we all drive around going forward right? So in a crash with that forward impact, the crash energy is moving towards the front of the car. And the rear facing car seat is going to support the baby's head, neck and spine which is the obviously the central nervous system. So it's going to support that part of the of the baby's body the best during that initial crash phase of the of the crash when there's the most energy to be managed and dealt with. And I love hearing all your stories, ladies about you know your experience of you Moving from no kids to now, two and three kids down over the years, our My oldest is almost 17 now. And our youngest is almost almost 11. And I've been doing car seats since before I had kids, I got started, I got certified as a technician back in 2000, and became an instructor of the carseat program here in Colorado in 2001. And have been on the instructor team here since then. So it's weird to think how long I've been doing this. But what I focus on in class, when I'm certifying technicians, I love the crash dynamics piece of it. Because that's really what this all comes back to. That's why we do this. It's not necessarily for the 99% of the time, 99 plus percent of the time, when we're driving around and nothing is going wrong. We're doing all this with our children and trying to make sure they're properly secured in the car seat for that rare occurrence when there's a crash, and that's when everything matters the most.

Natalie Gross 16:09
So I know we're on a podcast is kind of hard to demonstrate things. But you know, if you could kind of talk us through where the straps should hit on the baby or where they should sit when they're in the car seat.

Greg Durocher 16:21
If you think about, let's say, let's start with rear facing. Generally speaking, the straps should always be coming across the shoulders, assuming we're in a five point harness, the harnesses are coming across the shoulder, down to through the chest clip, to the buckle in the crotch area, and then down to the hips, where it anchors into the car seat. Again, the strap should be mid shoulder in the chest clip should be right at the armpit level. And as one of you were talking about the tightness of the harness is one of the most important things because in a crash, that's what's going to be holding the child in the car seat. So when they're rear facing those straps need to be in relation to the child's shoulder, they need to be going through the car seat at or below the child shoulder. Because if you can imagine a rear facing child in a crash, where the vehicles moving forward, all the crash energy is going to be moving towards the point of impact. So in a frontal impact, when that car is hitting something, the baby is going to want to continue moving forward. And what we want is we want that harness on the shoulder to cradle the shoulder, we don't want it in a way where the baby has to travel a distance in the car seat before that strap engages with their shoulder. Because what we're ultimately trying to do is get that strap on the strongest parts of the body, which is the skeletal system, you know, on the shoulder, chest, hips, then the tightness of it should be one of the ways we used to say it was Snug as a hug. Now we teach the pinch test, which is with the strap going vertical, right around the shoulder, you want to try to use your fingers and pinch vertically from top to bottom. And if you are able to grab the strap and pinch the strap, it's too loose, you want it to just bunch up a little bit but not be able to grab it, not for it to fold into a pinch. And that's how you're going to know if it's tight enough. And when it's tight with the chest clip at the proper position in that crash, the harness is going to stay properly positioned on their body. And that changes a little bit when we go forward facing in the harness, which is you know, for you and I the the shoulder belt of the vehicle seat belt leaves our shoulder and goes up to the vehicle right so it's it's going up and away from her shoulder. And in a in that same forward crash as we're moving forward. We're leaning into the seat belt. So the seat belt locks, it doesn't move in our body leans into it right. So we're kind of trying to create that dynamic when our child is forward facing in the five point harness. So we want that strap going through the car seat that where it leaves their shoulder and goes into the shell of the car seat behind them. We want that at or above their shoulder so that they experience that forward impact where they're leaning into the harness and it's not below their shoulder which would cause it to want to kind of squish their body down, if that makes sense. Mm. So that's what we're shooting for. And I think one of the common things that can cause the harness to be loose is one, you already mentioned, the coats, the bulky clothes. Really, we don't want any more material under the harness, then you know, a light sweat shirt, kind of a thing kind of material, what we're trying to avoid is the compression factor of the clothing itself. Because that's what can cause the harness to be loose. So it may feel tight pre-crash, just with our you know what we're pulling on it with our fingers. But in the crash, there's a lot more energy. But the other thing is, start at the hips, assuming most car seats adjust for tightness at the shoulders. So if you started the hips and kind of pull all the looseness up towards the shoulders, and then pull the strap tight. That's going to help make sure that the harnesses nice and snug from the hips all the way up through

Natalie Gross 20:58
Great. You know, we've talked about jackets already. What are some other common no-no's that you see out there?

Greg Durocher 21:05
I think a lot of parents not to throw dads under the bus. But dads to kind of looking at car seats like oh, yeah, this, I got this, you know, I don't need to read the instructions, it makes sense. I'll figure it out. You know, it, this is one area where it definitely pays to invest the time in reading the instruction book very carefully, and paying attention to you know, the details for your car seat. Because every car seat, every car seat manufacturer has very specific things that they want the user to do, or not do. So really get your manual and read it and follow it and study it until you understand it. Because you know, some car seats come with accessories that may need to be added or removed at various weights and heights of the child. Say for a newborn, your cart, your infant carrier might have an insert that needs to be removed at a certain weight or height of the child. And if you didn't read the book and pay attention to that, you may just leave it in there. So it's 75 to 90%. It's a wide range. But it's kind of hard to gather statistics across an entire nation of 300 and some odd million people. It's a wide range of misuse. But across the board, we find that, you know, at least 75 to 90% of car seats are not installed according to manufacturer's instructions 100%. So that's a wide range of misuses as well, because one misuse might be something relatively benign, that wouldn't necessarily create a fatality, a fatal outcome and a crash, for example, maybe a minor twist in the in the harness, well, technically, that's a misuse, and you're not supposed to do it and you're not using the car seat by manufacturer's instructions. But in a crash, it may or may not have a significant outcome in the of the outcome of the crash. Whereas I've seen people pull into the fire station to get their car seat checked, and the child was sitting in the car seat. But the child wasn't harnessed in the car seat and the car seat wasn't attached to the vehicle in any way. Obviously, that's a much more significant misuse, that would result in a fatal or significantly different outcome than just a twist in the webbing. So I think the one thing, study your owner's manual number two, and that actually includes the owner's manual for the car. Because some cars have certain locations and equipment in the car that you can use for car seats in this position, but not that position. And I'm referring mostly to the lower anchors, which are the extra straps that come with the car seat so that you don't have to mess with using the vehicle seatbelt system. So study your owner's manuals for your vehicles, make sure you're putting the kid in an appropriate seat and that you're using that seat. Your child's car seat correctly. That's the most important thing. Other misuses are transitioning from stage to stage too early. So NITSA puts out a recommendation, which is the they call it the four stages of car seat safety. So the first stage is rear facing and that's a is what Greg? Oh, I'm sorry. NITSA is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Okay, and that is the federal organization, the federal agency that oversees all Car Seat activity. And pretty much anything that has to do with a car rear facing is the first stage. The second stage is forward facing with a five point harness. The third stage is seat belt positioning. And then the fourth stage is just using the vehicle seat belt system. What we see as a major misuse is parents wanting to transition their child to the next stage too early. And the way that parents often think about it is that it's a graduation, you're graduating the forward facing, you're graduating to a booster seat or a seatbelt positioning device. And the reality is, is that at each stage, you're actually reducing the level of protection for the child. So you're going from a rear facing five point harness, which is the safest way to travel to a forward facing five point harness, which is less safe. And the reason it's less safe is earlier, I described how the car seat itself supports the child's head, right this head, neck and spine in that forward impact, which is again, the most common. When we turn that child forward facing, we now have a harness that's holding their body, but there's nothing holding or restraining their head. And as we all know, children's heads are disproportionately large and heavy to the rest of their body. So in that same forward crash, their neck is doing 100% of the restraining of their big head in that crash. And one of the formulas that we teach parents to start to wrap their heads around how much energy we're talking about is speed, times weight. Now if you're an engineer, we understand that's not the perfect formula for force. But it's a great approximation to get parents thinking about the amount of force that we're dealing with in a car crash. So a 10 pound baby in a 20 mile per hour crash. Now I don't know about you, but I could probably hit 20 miles an hour in the Target parking lot. So 10 pound baby 20 miles an hour, we're looking at 200 pounds of restraining force, if the baby's head weighs three pounds, and we're still in that 20 mile an hour crash we're looking at, but 60 pounds of force on their neck, and their necks just aren't built for that. So we want to give the babies as much time between birth and moving to forward facing. So the best practice recommendation now is to keep them rear facing as long as possible to the upper weight limits of the seat. And now that now we're talking about the different kinds of car seats. You know, we had talked about the infant carriers that are only rear facing and they may have a weight limit of say 3035 pounds. When we go shopping for the next car seat, we want to shop for one that has a higher rear facing weight limit so that we can keep those kids rear facing longer. So that they're not going forward until they're you know, two three years old and some kids even longer. So I think transitioning from stage to stage too early is a big issue. And it continues up the spectrum to you know, booster seats kids. Transitioning from the five point harness into a seat belt positioning device, the most common which is the booster seat, but it's a fright for kids, we actually saw a cool product, which is the right say for travel vest, which is a vest that is also a seat belt positioning device without all the bulk of the car seat. So it's a great product. But that's why I use seat belt positioning device because it it's not a booster seat, but it accomplishes seatbelt positioning. And most children do not fit or do not pass what's called the five step test of being able to sit in the vehicle seat without any adjunct equipment, no booster seat, no vest, no seat belt positioning, nothing. Just using the equipment in the car until they're somewhere between nine and 12 years old, most statistically is close to the 12 years older than 12 years old. Just beware that's every state has different laws. And all of the laws in every state tend to be the absolute minimum criteria. So we're looking at the spectrum between the at the very lowest end is what's legal. And the higher end is best practice and when you talk to a carseat safety technician, certified carseat tech. Hopefully they're going to be teaching you best practice. So It may be legal in your state to turn your child forward facing at 12 months old, but that is nowhere near the safest thing to do.

Natalie Gross 30:09
Okay, that's a really good reminder. You mentioned parents coming to the fire station to get their car seats checked. I think that's a really important thing to touch on here. If parents have questions about how the buckles hitting their baby, or if their car seat is in the car correctly, can they go to just any fire station? Can they go to a hospital? Where can you Where can you go to get that checked?

Greg Durocher 30:28
Oh, I'm so glad you asked. You know, that's a great question. No, you cannot go to any fire station or police station. There's only statistically there's a very small percentage of fire departments who have a certification process for their crews, you may pull into a fire station, and you are most likely going to get some well intentioned firefighter who wants to help you be safer. And they may very well give you some very bad advice if they're not a certified tech. So first and foremost, make sure that the person that's talking to you is a currently certified child passenger safety technician, you're even encouraged and call it here in Colorado, we encourage parents to ask to see the current certification card for that person, because the certification is every two years, they need to get recertified. There's a national database through NITSA for finding a certified car seat tech in your area. And it's an extremely long URL website. So it's safe, right for kids, we created a shortcut to that. And that is S R, four k.com. Forward slash CP s tech, te ch. And the SR, 4k is the number four. Okay, on that page, we talk a little bit about you know what it means to get your carseat checked and stuff. But then there's a link, a button to hit and you hit that button and it takes you over to the NITSA website. On that page, it asks you to enter you know, who What are you looking for, you can search by name, you can search by such and such, I recommend city and state as the only two pieces of information. You know, if you have they asked about, you know, language spoken and I think certified tech is one of them. So you can put that. But if you put your ZIP code that will restrict the search too much. So if you just put city and state, you're gonna get a broader result of your entire area, as opposed to just your ZIP code.

Natalie Gross 32:52
Thank you so much for sharing this important information. Greg, we're going to take another quick break and then bring our moms Hillary, Amber and Angela back into the conversation.

Natalie Gross 33:07
All right. Welcome back mamas. Any thoughts on what we've just heard from Greg, regarding this important topic of car seat safety?

Angela Campos 33:13
I agree. There's so many good points. I think I see so much of what he was talking about, you know, every day, in my work at the hospital, you know, I see our Healthy Kids, our complex kids, families call us all the time for carseat checks. I'm also an instructor so I work with a lot of the local fire departments and things and certification courses and keeping them up to date, to serve families, the community as well. And I think he hit so many great points there about, you know, not transitioning too early, it's not a graduation, and, you know, hardest fit and all of that just so many important things that are really the basics, but also are like just really kind of complicated in a way.

Greg Durocher 34:02
You know, and I think if we get the basics, right, we're gonna save lives, you know, and that's why I got into this, quite frankly is, you know, I looked at what fire prevention was able to do over the last you know, 50 100 years in preventing structures from burning down and in, you know, injury prevention is a great area to focus because if we can prevent the injury from happening by properly teaching the parents how to use their car seats, we're gonna save lives.

Hillary Renner 34:33
Yeah I had to laugh a little bit because Ellie's three and a half she's still rear facing and I don't think it ever occurred to her that she could be facing forward I don't know any different. Like I mean she's she's comfy she just chills in there but and she's actually she's pretty tiny she's she's always been on like the smaller side of the percentile so she is going to happen she is well well within the weight limits to stay rear facing for like, quite a while. Oh, and as long as she doesn't care, and I don't think she will, because she's my easy one that just doesn't have a lot of opinions about things. But I'm cool with leaving her rear facing because that also means that like, I can see I can eat snacks. She can't see me. Although now she knows when we pulled through like the dog in line that she should probably ask her I'm gonna explain to them that Greg mentioned that a lot of people don't know is that does to not add anything to your car seat that doesn't come with your car seat. I see it so often. Like there's so much cute like boutique II like stuff, putting, you know, like sheepskin, or whatever on the shoulder belts and those like pattern head support, and like all of that stuff. And actually, my sister in law, when she had her oldest, the nurses wouldn't let her leave the hospital until her husband went to Target and bought a head support. And when she told me that I was horrified. I was like, when I found out, I was like, You need to take that out of her seat immediately. Please don't use it. Like, it didn't come with your seat. That means it wasn't like crash tested with your seat. So you need to get rid of it. But I just thought was so interesting that the nurses wouldn't let them leave. I think Angela touched on the fact that like the nurses and labor and delivery and mother baby like they're not carseat certified techs. And hospitals, legally will not let them tell you or help you buckle your baby into the sea, because of heaven forbid, like you have an accident on the way home and something went wrong. Like they they don't want to be held liable. And I know like That sounds really terrible. But it's true. They're just they're not certified technicians. So, again, don't add anything to your car seat that didn't come with it, because it's not tested that way.

Greg Durocher 36:47
No, and that's great. And I think there are some hospitals that are there's a couple here in the Denver Metro that offer the service of having a carseat tech, do that inspection, do that education. But, you know, I think again, you have people are in these professions because they want to help. And their advice might not always be accurate.

Natalie Gross 37:10
Yeah, well, that's really good to know, because I had no idea to even ask for a certification when I left with my babies from the hospital, and they, you know, checked the car seat and everything. So that's such good info for new parents are there. I know, throughout this conversation, people have been throwing out some good resources. I'm gonna I've been making a list. So I'll add those to the show notes, any other resources moms that you found on carseat safety, to be particularly helpful that you want to share?

Amber Brown 37:35
I think it's just stuff like this, like, you know, sharing these things that get the conversation going. I think parents just need to have their interest piqued sometimes right before they start in that deep dive of what to be looking for and be aware of. Yeah, I just think if if we can get little things like this out and spread awareness in small ways, it really leads to kind of that aha moment for a lot of people.

Greg Durocher 38:05
I agree. 100%.

Natalie Gross 38:06
Thank you so much, Greg, for all of this helpful information. And Hillary and Amber and Angela, thank you so much for joining us for this episode today. Listeners, you can find out more about Greg and his company at Saferide4 kids.com. Also check out new mommy media.com where we have all of our podcast episodes plus videos and more.

Natalie Gross 38:37
That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Newbies. Don't forget to check out our sister shows preggy pals for expecting parents, parents savers for moms and dads with toddlers, the boob group for moms who get breast milk to their babies and twin talks for parents of multiples. Thanks for listening to newbies your go to source for new moms and new babies.

Disclaimer 39:02
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of new mommy media and should not be considered facts will such information and materials are believed to be accurate. It is not intended to replace or substitute for professional medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating healthcare problem or disease or prescribing any medication. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health, or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.