Do you buckle your children in their carseats? Chances are, you answered yes to this question. Do you buckle your own seat belt when you are pregnant? For many women, the answer to that is no, due to fears about the baby being harmed by the seat belt in the event of an accident. It turns out, this is a common worry, particularly as the baby grows large and the head descends in preparation for birth.
Researchers at Wake Forest University set out to find the answer to the lingering questions about the potential harm that could happen to an unborn baby. Can the seat belt hurt the baby? What they found should be comforting to pregnant mothers.
For the study, they used a national database of over two million patients that had been injured in motor vehicle accidents. From this list, they identified over 2,400 pregnant women who had been injured in car accidents. They studied the cases and compared them based on factors including the use of a seat belt and the presence of an airbag in the vehicle.
What they found when they examined the database was that women wearing a seat belt and traveling in a car with airbags were significantly less likely to have problems with the pregnancy that were related to the accident than women not wearing a seat belt and in vehicles without airbags.
The conclusion is that seat belts and airbags save lives, even the lives of unborn babies. After you buckle your other children into their seat belts or carseats, buckle your own seat belt, every time you get in the car. Not only are you protecting your baby, but you are also reinforcing good habits in your other children.
While it is important to wear your seat belt, it is also important to wear it correctly during pregnancy. The seat belt should be worn across the hips and under the abdomen, and not directly across the stomach. This prevents direct impact, as the belt is distributed across the hips and not across the baby.
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