CHOP finds virtual appointments to check child car seats are effective, will continue to offer them

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The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has long hosted several events each month for parents to ensure their children’s car seats are installed correctly. Usually, these events are in person, but they experimented with virtual options during the pandemic lockdown in 2020. Recently, they published research showing that the virtual option was effective, and have continued to offer it.

More than 70% of child car seats are not installed correctly, according to data from the National Digital Car Seat Check Form database in 2023. The data shows that common mistakes include: installing the seat too loosely, and making the harness that holds a child to the seat too loose. Nathan Branosky, a public information officer and certified car seat technician with the Pennsylvania State Police for more than 20 years, said he also frequently sees parents position the child car seat at the wrong angle and use the wrong belt path to secure the car seat.

“Incorrectly installed car seats can be serious,” he said. “Seat belt ejections, spinal cord injuries, head injuries can all result from an improperly installed car seat.”

He also warns parents to make sure that accessories like mirrors are correctly installed, and not to have any loose items such as groceries or pens that can fly around if the car hits something.

Parents can make appointments with the Pennsylvania State Police to get their car seats checked, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia also organizes similar events several times a month in the region. The hospital says those events are very popular and often all appointments are booked up.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the hospital introduced a virtual option allowing parents to schedule a video call with a car seat technician to get their child’s car seats checked. The virtual option had the same steps as the in-person appointments, though it took some time for technicians to learn how to describe certain steps in terms that laypeople could understand.

Parents enjoyed the virtual option, said Nicole Kus, a postdoctoral research fellow at CHOP.

“One person said, ‘The service was a huge lifeline for us. We had just gone into lockdown, and we were already panicking about that as well as having a baby.’ Another person said ‘in person is great and should continue, but please keep offering the virtual (option),’” Kus recalled.

Kus and other researchers surveyed more than 100 people who joined virtual child car seat checks from 2020 to 2022, and found that by the end of the session, all of them had installed their car seats correctly.

The hospital continues to offer both in-person events and virtual appointments, said Gina Duchossois, an injury prevention manager at CHOP.

“It could be: they’re in a rural community, or they’re too far from one of our in-person events … So it’s really been able to help us grow our car seat check program,” Duchossois said.

Nathan Branosky, of the Pennsylvania State Police, said the virtual program is a good idea for parents who cannot make it to an in-person appointment, but nothing beats meeting a certified technician in person.

“Obviously, something was better than nothing as far as providing parents and caregivers instructions on how to properly install a car seat, but nothing is better than having an on-site appointment with a trooper or somebody certified.”