No Child Carseat = Child Endangerment = Call to Police?

[S.T.A.C.E.Y]

I was reading the thread "Vent: I absolutely HATE stupidity! Not ignorance.....STUPIDITY!!" and it got me thinking about a potential topic for one of my nursing classes:

Should there be more encouragement for nurses to contact police if they feel a parent may be transporting a child from the hospital/clinic unsafely?

What are your thoughts on the subject? I'm just brainstorming ideas in my head right now, and would like to hear what you think are the pros and cons of collaborating with your local police department to encourage this practice.

[Jo Dirt]

I can remember living in a house with lead paint on the walls and asbestos in the furnace. I can remember when no one wore bicycle helmets. I remember sneking into the bathroom and sneaking baby aspirin to eat and doctors thinking it was OK to for women to smoke when they were pregnant. But...experience and reasearch has shown us that none of those things are safe. Experience and research have also shown us that car seats save lives...and since so many parents fail to protect their children, the legal system is going to do it for them. I know you aren't saying we should just let children roam about a car all willy nilly. :)

I have been on a lot of car crashes that everyone died except the child who was properly restrained...and many of them wouldn't have been properly restrained if someone hadn't made their parents do it.

Oh now, this is apples and oranges.

A couple of years ago, there was a wreck here where a car collided with an Amish buggy and several children were killed.

Think they would have been safer with car seats in the buggy? How will we start holding Amish people responsible for endangering the lives of their children? Those buggies are ten times more flimsy than the smallest car.

How far will we go?

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Oh now, this is apples and oranges.

A couple of years ago, there was a wreck here where a car collided with an Amish buggy and several children were killed.

Think they would have been safer with car seats in the buggy? How will we start holding Amish people responsible for endangering the lives of their children? Those buggies are ten times more flimsy than the smallest car.

How far will we go?

You have a good point there. Really, I wish we were all in Amish buggys and lived a slower paced life. It's a better way of life. Maybe we should take a clue from the Amish.

I'm one of those people that started using corificeats and seatbelts because of the law. When my oldest child was a baby they started making it mandatory, so I started doing it (except on occasion when my husband was driving and the baby got hungry for breastfeeding) I also remember when they made seatbelt mandatory and I did start using seatbelts then.

Our whole family has always, since then, buckled up everytime we get in the car. A few years back my adult son had a rollover accident on the interstate and escaped with a mild concussion thanks to his seatbelt. The car was destroyed. He probably drove over a patch of ice, that's his theory. So, seatbelts do save lives. I'm in favor of these laws. I would never call the cops on someone, but I'm not opposed to others doing so.

[rn/writer, RN]

The topic of this thread is, "What do you do if you see that a child leaving your hospital has no car seat?"

Not politics. Not the motives of the police. Not parental rights. Or any other distracting subject.

Just, "what do you do?" or,"what is your hospital policy?" You can brainstorm ideas about how to handle such a situation. But, please, stay in the general vicinity of the original question(s).

Thank you.

[Mrs. M.]

I worked pediatrics for many years, and I found one line that worked like a charm. If a family didn't have a corificeat, we would offer to get one through social services. Sometimes that meant a delay in the discharge, and they would decline. So, I would say something to the effect of - "Okay, I just need for you to confirm that I did tell you that this is the law, because I need to document that in the medical record. Let me find someone to witness this". Suddenly, they would have time to wait, and they would often get someone to bring one from home.

Sadly, it often isn't that they don't have a corificeat. The parent who is coerced into taking the child home in a corificeat is not going to use it consistently.

[iheartyou]

Here's some Advil, Heart.........

Thanks Tazzi. You remind me of a dear friend of mine.:redpinkhe

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

As far as my hospital, it requires a corificeat, the nurse walks the parents and new babe out and watches them load up the baby in the corificeat. Do they have an actual legal right to do this? I'm not sure, but in my state corificeats are required so maybe they do.

[fins]

On the other hand,

What about people who aren't getting into a car? I work downtown in a major city. The buses don't have seatbelts, the subways, trains, and trolleys don't' have seatbelts, and several thousand people live within walking distance of the hospital. And yet, I saw nurses trying to bully people into buying a car seat, even though they weren't taking the child home in a car. Even though they didn't have a car.

[rn/writer, RN]

Seriously, folks, if the off-topic posts keep coming, this thread will be closed.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Okay, here are some stats:

“It’s no coincidence that because 8 out of 10 Americans are wearing their safety belts, we have also achieved the lowest traffic fatality rate on our Nation’s highways since record-keeping began 29 years ago,”

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/a/seatbeltuse.htm

And from the CDC comes this:

"Recent studies suggest that MVC fatalities and injuries among infants and children can be reduced further by promoting and enforcing age-appropriate restraint use "

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5522a2.htm

It doesn't take much to figure out that to use car seats and seatbelts saves lives. Never, ever in the 10 years I did level one trauma nursing and in the other 8 years I've done pre-hospital care have I ever seen where wearing a seatbelt caused death. No way, no how! Now, I have seen people die and yes some did wear seatbelts. However, the mechanism of the crash was such that it was unsurvivable. It is always better to remain in the vehicle than to thrown to the hard pavement.

[Inschool2BNRN]

I think that it would be best to talk to the parent and direct them to a free car seat program. Calling the police might result in an unnecessary endangerment charge when the situation could have been fixed with education. It is not helping that child for its parents to get a criminal record, all that would do is endanger the child's financial future and take away from their quality of life when the parent can no longer get a decent job. That could have far longer reaching consequences for that child. The prudent and helpful thing to do would be to direct them to a free car seat program and tell them that it could result in a horrible accident or criminal charge. I do not think it is helpful for a nurse to seek such a charge.