90 min trip with newborn in a car seat?

[trrk]

Just wondering if it is OK to take a 3 week old in the car seat for a hospital appointment 90 min away (each way so 3 hr total in the day)? The person who made the appointment seemed to think it was fine but I've also read the guidance to keep it under 30 min until they are 1 month old so I'm a bit confused. Would you make a stop every 30 min (not always possible on the motorway depending on location of services) or would one stop or even just driving through be OK? We will use the pram once there so she can lie flat. Since we have to be there at a certain time for the appointment it's a bit difficult to know how long to allow for the trip.

It will be fine. Just do it.

It’s fine.

I wouldn't want to do that much driving in the day full stop.

Safety wise I think one stop on the way there one on the way back would be OK. But ideally 2 stops. Also I'd want to do something else before or after the app so that there's more time for baby to not be in the car seat I between the journeys. Is that an option?

What's the app for?

How big is she? The study suggest that is small babies it effects mostly. Can anyone sit in the back with baby to keep and eye if your worried? I would probably do it with one stop.

I'd probably do one stop each way, even though it would be a pain. Chances are it will be the only journey you ever make where you have to do this, so I'd just suck it up and leave extra time.

The time period guidelines were because of the baby’s airways being restricted due to the shape a car seat puts them in. Not sure why anyone thinks it’s ‘fine’ to restrict a newborns airways for dangerous length of time.

It's fine, split into 2 legs if necessary. Not sure when this 30 minute thing came in - I drove dd 3 hours at 10 days old, no choice

Thanks for the advice. It’s for a tongue tie assessment which they apparently don’t do at our local hospital. She was 7.25kg one week ago but seems to have grown since. We can easily do something after and stop as much as we want on the way back. On the way out I need to time everything so we arrive in time. I’ll sit in the back while DH drives.

At 3 weeks if your baby is healthy and not premature, no breathing issues, particularly if you have a car seat with decent inserts I would expect this will be totally fine. If you want to know where the recommendation comes from, it's a study that was done in 2016 where they looked at the current (at that time) recommendation of 2 hours, which was based on a study done on a car seat placed on the floor when it's at roughly 30 degrees - they said hold on, this isn't helpful because in the car, they're set up at more like 40 degrees, and the car is vibrating because of the engine. So they rigged up an infant car seat (and, honestly, from the photos of the study, it was a very old fashioned one without newborn inserts - possibly they were going for worst case scenario) at 40 degrees on a vibrating plate and measured newborn and premature babies' oxygen saturation levels in the seat. They found that the youngest most vulnerable babies had problems within 30 minutes of being sat in the seat, which is why the recommendation is up to 30 minutes for babies up to 4 weeks old.

At 3 weeks your baby will be at the end of that window of vulnerability. You could certainly stop once if you feel like 90 minutes would be too long, it only takes a minute or two out of the seat to let them stretch and reset their breathing/oxygen saturation levels. But it's also likely to be fine even if you carry on. The inserts in most infant car seats are much better at positioning babies than the seat that they used in the test. I wouldn't routinely use a car seat for long periods for a baby this age, but for a one off for an appointment the inconvenience of stopping is likely to outweigh the risk of anything happening, unless they have particular issues relating to breathing etc.

@Spohn

Perhaps we had better car seat shapes 30 years ago - people put the car seat on the pram chassis then too. The trend for large extended rear facing car seats from birth I'm wondering?

Stop every 30 mins

Listen to @BertieBotts- the MN expert on all things car seat related.

If she's 7+ kilos it's highly unlikely she'll be in a compromised position in the seat. That's a decent weight and she's likely the size of a 3 month old isn't she?

Actually. Hang on. Do you mean 7lbs?

Thanks again. She is healthy and was born at 38 weeks so a bit early but not premature.

It's absolutely fine as a one off.

This guidance is put in place because some parents just leave their bairns in car seats for far too long and too often to nap, keep them contained etc

Lullaby Trust says 2 hours. Where does the 30 minute recommendation come from?

The time period guidelines were because of the baby’s airways being restricted due to the shape a car seat puts them in. Not sure why anyone thinks it’s ‘fine’ to restrict a newborns airways for dangerous length of time.

Surely you wouldn’t to do it for any length of time then? Airways shouldn’t be ‘restricted’ whether for 3 or 30 minutes.
Lullaby Trust said that ‘research into the link between car seats and SIDS found young babies may be at risk of breathing difficulties if they travel while sat upright for too long’ - not that simply being in a car seat restricts the airways.

10/30/whatever (actually 6) years ago this wasn't advised because the risk wasn't known. The car seats back then weren't actually that different - the design of infant carriers hasn't really changed very much at least in terms of baby position. In fact the current designs from the bigger brands tend to flatten out the angle better for babies than the ones from 10+ years ago. That doesn't mean the risk doesn't exist but it does mean it's something rare that has been uncovered by studies. A single one off journey is extremely low risk. Keeping babies in the car seat all day every day would be a problem.

We had to do 50 mins without stopping when DD was 2 days old as that was the distance from home to hospital and there was nowhere safe to stop in between due to the type of road. I’d do it with a good stop in between each way if it was me. It’s not ideal but as a one off with someone sat in the back to check carefully should be fine.

If the baby was early and is 7lbs I'd stop half way and just get them out the seat for 10 mins to make sure blood oxygen levels are back up (if they went down). Sitting in the back a good idea too. Not such a worry when they are bigger so you won't need to worry so much for later trips.

Oops, the size was a typo. 3.25 kg or just over 7 pounds.

Lullaby trust says 2 hours because the previous and more general research says 2 hours.

Yes, ideally you would never put a baby in a position where their airway could become compromised. No other product for babies is as upright as a car seat sits in the car for that reason. The reason they sit that upright in the car is because a more upright position is safer in the case of a crash, and so that the seat can physically fit into the car - there are a few that can lie flatter in the car but these take up a lot of room front to back so they do not fit in all cars, or they lie sideways across two back passenger seats which obviously isn't practical for everyone. In addition the ones that stick out towards the front don't get as good crash test results as the standard 40 degree angle ones, although they are still good, and the sideways ones, well the crash testing just probably isn't very accurate on these because the sensors in the dummies aren't set up to be used sideways, so I'm a bit sceptical about them although I think they are probably better than the old carrycots that were never crash tested at all. And in fact to go back to the 30 years ago comparison - at that time it was advised as being safe to use a carrycot for very young babies.

So it's a trade off really between compromised airways, which is a likely outcome but low risk as long as it's only for a short period of time, becoming higher risk the longer/more the airway is compromised, and being in a crash which is unlikely but very high risk to a tiny baby if it did happen.

Tiny babies that are not fitting in the seat correctly are most at risk. If you tilt your own head down and notice your breathing you'll see what the problem is. It's most severe when the baby is completely chin to chest (you can feel this yourself) which you sometimes see with very small babies, poorly fitted seats or poorly designed seats however most babies will have some degree of head tilting forward when in a car seat because of the angle and curved shape. Inserts help to mitigate this a bit by supporting the neck and back in alignment. Some are better than others.

If one of your sits in the back, you can keep an eye on the baby, and then I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe stop once if worried and convenient.