A new study as published on yahoo news By Agata Blaszczak Boxe(earlier published on LiveScience) has shown that Placing infants in car seats and other seating devices for naps may put their lives in danger.
In the course of the study, researchers examined 47 cases of children under 2 years old who died while in device meant for them to seat, whereas the remaining deaths occurred in slings, swings, bouncers and strollers.
study author Dr. Erich K. Batra, of Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center said "When the baby is asleep, and you don't have eyes on the baby, they should be 'ABC,'" meaning that they should be alone.
In a case included in the study, an 11-month-old baby died after being placed in a car seat with a bottle, to take a nap, while at an in-home day care. The seat's chest buckles were secured, but the lower buckles were not secured. When the child care provider checked on the child, 1 hour and 20 minutes after placing him the seat, she found that the baby had slipped down in the car seat, and a strap was pressed against his neck.
In the vast majority of deaths in the study, the child were either strangled by something such as a strap, or died because they could not get enough air due to the way their bodies were positioned. The time that had elapsed between when the children were last seen alive and when they were found deceased ranged from 4 minutes to 11 hours.
The study didn't dig into knowing how common such cases occur. When Batra was interviewed by LiveScience he said "It is not like you are hearing about them every day, but I think it is important that people know that they do occur,"
