Most parents know to keep their children in car seats until they are four years old or forty pounds. My son is almost five, and I hesitated to remove his booster from the car. He just looked so vulnerable in only a seatbelt. Fortunately, he does not complain much when he is in the car with peers and their moms don't make them sit in a "baby seat."

I was, however, surprised to hear of a new study that supports the need to keep children in booster seats until they are eighty pounds, taller than fifty-eight inches and nine years old! The seat belts are apparently not enough to protect children in an accident. Car crashes are the leading cause of death and disability for young children, and the study suggests that booster seats can greatly reduce fatalities and serious injuries in children.

The new report, conducted by The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, was recently published in the Medical Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Data was studied from fifteen states on car crashes involving children. "Strapping young children into seat belts instead of car booster seats significantly increases their risk of death and serious injury," the study reports.

The study's authors state: "…the inappropriate restraint [of a seat belt] resulted in a 3.5- fold increased risk of significant injury and a more than fourfold increased risk of significant head injury." "Putting young children in seat belts puts them at risk for 'submarining or sliding out of a lap belt during a crash," they wrote. The risk of internal and spinal cord injuries are also greater when using a seat belt only, and brain injury can occur when a child's head hits his knees. The report makes it clear that children are much safer with the added restraint of a booster seat. Another related issue concerns the improper use of car seats. Mark Altman, with an organization specializing in child safety education, says that approximately sixty percent of parents use child safety seats, but about ninety-five percent of parents use them incorrectly.

Here are some tips:

• Infants get the best protection in a rear-facing seat.
• If you have a passenger-side airbag, put your infant in the back seat-in the center.
• To keep an eye on your baby in the back, you can clip a monitoring mirror on the back window so you can see your baby through your rearview mirror.
• Children over twenty pounds can sit in a forward facing seat, but keep them in the back seat.
• If you drive a pick-up that does not have a rear seat, deactivate the passenger air bag.
• Make sure you are securing the car seat correctly.
• Register your safety seat so the manufacturer can contact you if it is recalled.

A helpful website can give you information about your cars at: www.carseat.org. Or you can call 1-800-424-9393 for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hotline.

So, don't sell that booster seat at the garage sale-you'd better keep it for a while longer, and if it is a few years old, make sure it is still safe to use and has not been recalled. That's the easy part. The challenge is to persuade your seven or eight-year- old to sit in it! Safety first…