Infant car seats

A first seat for your baby

In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are the No. 1 killer of children ages 3 to 14. According to the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Center for Statistics and Analysis, 1,314 children 14 and younger were fatally injured in crashes in 2009. Among those where restraint use was known, almost half were unrestrained. Among the 322 fatalities of babies and children younger than 4 years old where restraint use was known, 31 percent were unrestrained.

Those NHTSA statistics drive home the importance of securing your child in an appropriate restraint system—a car seat—for every trip. The statistics are further supported by data that show that child restraints reduce fatal injuries to infants younger than 1 year old by 71 percent, and injuries to children from 1 to 4 years old by 54 percent.

Infant car seats are designed to be a newborn baby's first vehicle-restraint system, and are intended to be used in a rear-facing orientation only. All of them offer the convenience of a detachable carrier that allows the seat to be released from or reattached to an accompanying base that stays inside a vehicle to allow for the easy transport of a small, and often sleeping, baby.

Our updated infant-car-seat Ratings (available to subscribers) are presented in two categories. The first group includes models with maximum weight limits of 22 lbs. The second is a newer group of models that can be used for babies whose weight exceeds 22 lbs. Models in that group have maximum weight limits ranging from 30 to 35 lbs. The higher-weight infant seats are becoming more popular to accommodate children who weigh more than 22 lbs. before their first birthday (before that age, forward-facing seats are not recommended). They can also extend the use of the infant seat to keep children in a safer, rear-facing orientation. (Learn more in Infant car seat installation: Ride with your newborn to check the angle.)