I hope that my son's heartbreaking story might save your baby – don't make common car seat mistake | The Sun

A MUM has shared a stark car safety warning with other parents, after she and her son suffered a horrifying accident.

She urged mums and dads not to make a common car seat mistake – after her own car safety knowledge saved her tot Jax's life.

Her story was shared as a post on the baby and child first aid education page CPR Kids.

"This post could save your baby’s life," the mum wrote.

UK law requires parents to make sure their tot's car seat until they're over 15 months old.

Jax's mum explained the importance of this:"Did you know that if your child’s car seat was forward-facing and you were to get in an accident their neck would get hit with the force of 180kg 220kg? Where as if they were to be rearward facing that force would be 40kg-60kg?"

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Thankfully, she was equipped with that information before she and her son got into a horrifying car accident in 2020.

"I’m hoping that by sharing our story it may convince some people to rearward face for as long as possible," she wrote.

She also stressed the importance of doing a pinch test on your child's car seat straps.

Basically, if the harness across your little one's chest is slack enough to pinch, that means you need to tighten it until it's snug – your fingers should glide along it rather than being able to grab it.

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Before setting of to her parent's house as she often did, Jax's mum put her tot in his backward-facing car seat and pinched at her son's straps to check for slack.

"This time we never made it there," she shared.

The Melbourne mum had no memory of what exactly happened.

"Instead, the next thing I remember was men putting me in an ambulance and telling me that I had been in an accident," the mum recalled.

Medics told her Jax had been airlifted to the Royal children’s hospital in Melbourne.

She spent the night in hospital and was finally able to see her little one the next day – she was horrified by what she saw.

"Nothing could have prepared me for seeing my little man in that massive bed with so many tubes and wires everywhere," she wrote.

"He had a fractured skull, a brain bleed, high pressures in the brain, and a torn ligament in his neck."

She was suddenly hit with the realisation that it could have been much worse if she hadn't done those car safety checks and that she "could lose [her] precious boy".

Little Jax had to have four surgeries and spent four weeks in hospital.

And though it was 'touch and go' for that time, the mum was able to take her little boy home "without any permanent issues".

"Not a day goes by where I don’t think about what life would be like if we weren’t so lucky," she wrote.

"If I hadn’t known to keep him rearward facing, he definitely wouldn’t be here the doctors have told me."

Though health chiefs recommend you keep your little one facing rearward in the car until they're 15 months old, you can keep them in one until they're about four years old, or 105 cm tall, according to the Child Accident Prevention Trust.

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"Rear-facing seats can offer high levels of protection for your child’s neck, especially in a head on collision, so the longer they travel in a rear-facing seat the safer they should be in a crash," it added.

"It’s safest to keep your child in a car seat with an integral harness for as long as possible. Only move your child to a booster seat when their eye-line is above the back of the child seat or the weight limit is reached."

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