by Joyce Slaton posted in Products & Prizes

Despite recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatricians and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to keep kids rear-facing in carseats until age 2, along with research that indicates rear-facing is up to 5 times safer, a sizeable percentage of BabyCenter parents admit amongst themselves that they turn their children's carseats around before age 2 anyway.
How do we know" Extended rear-facing has been a hot topic on BabyCenter's Community boards for years, with the debate heating up in 2011 after the AAP put forth its new rear-facing recommendations. In polls on the BabyCenter site and on community threads, users admit to turning their 1-year-olds to forward face in substantial percentages; for example, 14 percent, 25 percent, and 30 percent.
Now, it should be noted that these polls are extremely self-selecting -- parents who just happen to be on the site or on a particular birth board, happen to see the question, and happen to be interested enough to respond. But since there are no agencies that collect data on carseat usage and nobody really knows how many parents follow the rear-facing-until-2 recommendations, the results are interesting.
And frankly, if the self-selecting groups who have the time, money, education, and inclination to be online debating safety issues decide not to rear-face until age 2, it's easy to imagine how many more parents might be out there turning their kids around soone...