Car Seats
PROBLEM: Hazardous Materials in Infant Car Seats
Just because a car seat will help protect your infant in a crash doesn’t mean it’s completely safe. Many brands use materials that contain antimony, bromine, chlorine, and lead. Some car seats are composed of up to 9% bromine1, which is frightening when you consider that serious poisoning from this element can result in long-term lung problems and brain damage.2
Manufacturers aren’t exactly in a hurry to tell consumers these details. Babies spend a great deal of time in car seats breathing the fumes from these toxic metals, and there is nothing to stop them from sucking on parts of it. Anything your baby is going to spend that much time with should be as safe as possible—not filled with toxins.
1 Wyatt Andrews, “Is Fire Retardant A Harmful Toxin?” CBS News, May 19, 2008, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/19/... (accessed December 17, 2010).
2 “Fact About Bromine,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/bromine/basics/facts.asp (accessed December 17, 2010).
