No nursing while the car is moving!
This picture shows a very DANGEROUS practice – i.e. nursing while the car is moving.
As a pediatrician in a NICU and the daughter of a lactation consultant, I’m very, very pro-breastfeeding… but nursing has a time and a place. A moving vehicle is NOT the time or the place. Nursing your child while the car is moving puts both you and your baby at significant risk of unnecessary injury. Here’s why:
In a crash, everything will weigh its weight multiplied by the G’s of the crash – G’s being the force of gravity. A 30mph crash, like they test the car seats at, has about 20-25 G’s. If mom weighs 120 pounds, and is in a crash with 20 G’s, her entire body will weigh 120 pounds x 20G’s = 2400 pounds. You can imagine that her chest will weigh at least 1,000 of these pounds – and if she is leaning over the baby to nurse, her chest will slam down on the baby’s body in a sudden stop or crash – as both the mom and baby will be moving in the same direction due to the physics of the crash. You wouldn’t drop a 1,000 pound cinder block on a baby – so too you shouldn’t lean over the child to nurse them – as your body can crush the child. Even if you are nursing with your seat belt on, the belt is loose enough that your chest is very close to the baby (otherwise your breast couldn’t be in baby’s mouth), which means that your chest will certainly make hard contact with the baby in a crash.
The risks to the baby from nursing in a moving car are great, and so too are the risks to mom. Mom is at significantly increased risk for a head injury as the loose shoulder belt can not prevent her chest and head from moving forward and hitting hard structures in the car – like the back of the front seats, the door, window, child’s car seat, etc. If Mom removes her seat belt, not only is she at significantly increased risk of injury, but so too is everyone else in the car – as studies show that if one person in the back seat doesn’t wear their seat belt, the other people in the car who are buckled (like the baby, the driver, etc) are up to 3 times more likely to die in the crash because the unbuckled person becomes a human missile.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Ian Ezra Kahn and his mother. Mom was nursing Ian in the backseat while Dad was driving. Even though they weren’t going far and they weren’t going fast, a car came out of nowhere and hit them. Mom and Ian died at the scene; both would have survived without injury had they been buckled up. Dad survived without any external injuries – but suffered from a broken heart after losing his wife and 3-month-old son. Had Ian been in his car seat during the crash, he would now be finishing high school and getting ready for college.
I feel foolish now. I used to do this when my daughter was going through an I-hate-cars fussy infant stage. It was the only thing that would sooth her, and it drastically decreased the level of stress in the car for the whole family. I neve
r considered how my body could hurt hers – after all, I thought, we were both safely buckled. Now that you’ve laid out the facts, I can’t believe I never realized it was dangerous. It’s sobering. I’m grateful we were never in an accident. Thank you for sharing this information.
I did this before I knew better. :/ Now, when baby is having an I-hate-my-careseat-get-me-out-of-here screamfest I just start the engine & sit next to him & nurse in the drive-way or parking lot before leaving the destination. He’s already buckled & ready to go & the running engine gives the purr/vibration he needs to fall asleep. Then I can safely get in my own seat & buckle up & be on the way. Of course it doesn’t work every time, but its nto going to kill/severely injure our babies to let them cry in the car when needed. :/
Reblogged this on southernbreastfeedingsupport and commented:
I never thought of the points this article brings up
Surely no one would, would they?!
Thank you for posting this! I see so many mothers suggesting it to each other. Some other things that I have learned is that if moms weight is forced onto the car seat it will far exceed the weight designs of the car seat and could lead to catastrophic failure of the seat. Baby should also only be in the car seat for a maximum of 2 hours at a time, as it can restrict baby’s breathing, so frequent stops on long car trips are important as well.
Even before I became a child passenger safety tech, I refused to do this. My in-laws were horrified when a 4 hour trip to visit relatives at Christmas with a 6 week old, turned into a 6 hour trip for us because I made my husband stop so I could nurse. I got every suggestion in the book- from completely taking her out of her seat, to leaning over the car seat myself to feed her. I have struggled for nearly 4 years now to express the importance of passenger safety to all my family members…some are more willing to accept it than others. Great post!!
Yep. I’ve often said I wish there was a contraption which was a combo pump/bottle so I could sit up right safely belted in next to my infant safely strapped in their car seat and feed them fresh milk. Yeah, yeah, I know there are just bottles but then I get engorged so it doesn’t solve that side of it. Until some genius invents this device we just pull over at a safe place and nurse.
Hilary, on our last road trip, I pumped (buckled into the back seat) and immediately gave baby the bottle… could that work for you?
I keep thinking of our minivan and even if I were to sit next to her or behind her safely, I would have to have rubber breasts for them to reach her while we were moving! Furthermore, if I did do it (which I couldn’t without taking the safety belt off one or both of us) there becomes the issue of gas! How does one burp a baby if they are strapped in? We turned a 6 hour trip into a 9 hour one because every hour or so we’d have to stop to feed/burp or change our little 4month old! It’s good to know this even if I have no idea how it’s even possible!