How Safe is Your Child’s Car Seat?

I saw this over on TreeHugger, and just had to go to HealthyCar.org to see for myself what the big deal is. I’m not talking about which car seats are safest in an accident. I’m talking about which have the least toxic chemicals in them. The report is quite disturbing.

A 2006 model similar to my daughter’s car seat is on their list as being one of the most toxic. They only tested the 2006 models, so I have no idea how safe my daughter’s car seat is really in terms of chemicals it may offgas. But obviously it concerns me greatly.

It may well be that I have nothing to worry about. Some of the similar models were in the mid range in terms of chemicals. Rather disappointing to so consistently see the seats by Graco (the manufacturer of my daughter’s car seat) so consistently in the mid to high range, though.

Realistically speaking, about all I can do is contact Graco to see. My daughter has about a year and a half, on a guess, before she meets California standards for not using any car seat. That’s currently 6 years and 60 pounds. She’ll be six in just under a year, but unless she has an amazing growth spurt, there’s no way she will be 60 pounds by then.

For my son, they did better, with much lower outgassing on the convertible car seats. He’s only 2, so we have a lot longer to go before he gets out of car seats.

So what do you think? Would this kind of chemical exposure concern you as a parent?

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