Three Things to Know About Safe Driving During Pregnancy

This article’s information comes from a Google Hangout this week posted on our FaceBook Page. The hangout or webinar was hosted/led by the co-founder and CEO of Safe Ride For Kids, Greg Durocher. In the hang out he talks about the following three points:

1) The Existing seat belt in the vehicle was never designed or tested to provide optimal protection for the pregnant woman. Check out these statistics:

-Motor vehicle crashes are the single leading cause of traumatic fetal death (82%).

– Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for seat belts do not address safety for pregnant women.

– Even when the seat belt is worn, and worn properly, a large number of injuries as well as lost pregnancies still occur.

This shows a significant risk to pregnant women while driving whether or not they’re wearing their seatbelt and properly.

2) In the United States alone, there’s an estimated 3,000 women a year who never get to hold their baby because the unborn child was injured in a car crash. That 82% of traumatic fetal death mentioned earlier works out to be the approximate 3,000 babies who will never be held by their mamas. This statistic is an estimate because often a mama is in a car crash but doesn’t get diagnosed with a miscarriage until one, two, up to four weeks after the crash, so the medical field doesn’t necessarily attribute the miscarriage to the car crash but to natural causes.

3) There’s a better way to use the vehicle seatbelt system that makes the system more comfortable and easier to use. Within the normal proper wear of a seatbelt by a pregnant woman, the abdomen gets compressed by a seatbelt in a sudden breaking or crash.

However, when using a Tummy Shield, the seatbelt is redirected in the event of a sudden breaking or crash, making baby and mama much more safe. Additionally, even if a sudden breaking or crash never occurs, the mama is much more comfortable when riding in the vehicle with a Tummy Shield.