It Matters Where You Place Your Child's Car Seat Chest Clip

Mom uses ‘Mr. Bones’ to easily illustrate car seat safety

Have you noticed what happens when a parent posts a picture of their child in a carseat? There are always opinions. That jacket’s too bulky! That seat is too small! Those chest clips are too low! The internet can’t help but concern troll parents when it comes to car seat safety. It turns out there’s a good reason for it.

When it comes to car seats, correct usage makes all the difference between minor or no injuries and serious ones. One mom is on a mission to spread the word about how important correct chest clip placement on your child’s carseat harness is, and she thought of a brilliant way to do it.

“Mr. Bones here is demonstrating on the left why his chest clip sucks,” Ashley Kulm explains on her now viral post. “He would have internal bleeding to his vital organs. Mr. Bones on the right has the chest clip properly placed and his organs protected by his rib cage.”

Kulm describes herself as a “Child Passenger Safety Advocate.” That means, she “studies a lot of information from CSFTL, stays up to date on carseat safety, and wants your child to be safe while traveling in a vehicle. You don’t have to be a parent to be an advocate on carseat safety.” She started a Facebook page to spread the word about child safety issues of all kinds.

Her post reminiscent of a post that went viral last year around this same time, of the bad bruising a child sustained after going through a car accident.

“This is a 3 year old girl who was just in a car accident. The bruising on her chest is from her chest clip on her 5 point harness,” Heather Starr wrote in a Facebook post last year. “Notice it was correctly positioned on her chest, at armpit level right between her nipples… Had the clip been placed lower, she likely would have had organ damage and internal bleeding. (Or even been ejected from the car!) Had it been placed higher, she could have been asphyxiated. (The ER doctor she saw confirmed these facts as well).”

This post explains it even more:

Bottom line — correctly using your carseat is essential for safety. For once, internet concern trolling is actually priceless.