There has been a lot of chatter on the internet lately about children being forgotten in car seats. My initial reaction is always to fiercely judge a person. “How in the world can you forget your child?” “How disconnected from life can a person really be?” “You must have serious issues to forget your own child.”
I gave birth to my second son 5 weeks ago. These last 5 weeks have been some of the busiest and most disorienting of my whole life. My husband and I have joked that during times of stress, toddler tantrums and plain old chaos we forget our second son is here. I mean he’s so small and quiet. Our first is so loud and boisterous. He keeps us on our toes all the time. During those times it’s happened that I will snap my head up and say “where’s Exley!?” Only to find him sleeping peacefully in the bassinette 2 feet away where I put him 10 minutes ago.
Here’s my point. I have never forgotten my child in his car seat. I don’t think that I ever would. But I don’t feel it is out of the realm of possibilities for any human to make a mistake like that. We don’t know what people are going through. People of all walks of life have forgotten their babies. No one is immune to making mistakes; even this mistake. Also, Forgotten Baby Syndrome is real. David Diamond, PhD discusses here this syndrome and its role in vehicular heat stroke. The bottom line is this happens regularly. It’s a problem that we might be able to help people with.
Cars didn’t used to have technology to alert you that you left your lights on. People forgot to turn their lights off and their batteries died. People, for whatever reason, forget their children in cars. 15 of those children have died in 2014 alone. If saving a battery is worth new technology, isn’t saving a child worth it as well?
Please sign this petition to mandate car seat manufacturers and automakers to develop and implement technology to detect children forgotten in car seats.
Abby Theuring, MSW
