Expectant parents have a lot on their plates.
There’s coming up with a birthing plan, selecting a pediatrician and buying a stroller and crib. They have to buy baby clothes and stock up on diapers, and they have to come up with a name.
It can all be a little overwhelming, particularly for first-time parents. Any many are surely worried about forgetting something or making a mistake.
Local medical experts are warning that one preventable misstep appears to be on the rise.
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in counterfeit car seats being brought in by parents,” said Jessica Fritz, an neonatal intensive care unit nurse at Reading Hospital. “Any they’re not necessarily safe seats to send kids home in. They’re definitely a risk.”
Heather Enright, maternal child health safety and quality nurse coordinator at Reading Hospital, said the facility began tracking counterfeit car seats it comes across in 2023. In that year, 10 were discovered.
Last year the hospital came across 19 counterfeit seats, and so far this year it has already found 12, Enright said.
“It’s definitely a continuing trend,” she said.
Fritz and Enright said that in most cases, parents are unwittingly purchasing counterfeit car seats online. Often, they’re bought from a third-party seller, not the manufacturer.
“Sometimes they’re coming from a seemingly reputable site, or maybe sometimes from a site that seems a little more off,” Enright said. “It’s usually parents looking for a deal and thinking they found it.”
Fritz said counterfeit seats are ones that don’t meet the standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Some may be manufactured in another country, where standards are different. For example, she said, many European seats don’t have a chest clip, which U.S. standards require.
Others are meant to seem like legitimate car seats but are cheaply made.
“Some common things you’ll see is flimsy plastic parts, maybe they won’t have a five-point harness, they’ll just have fabric or webbing on the back,” Fritz said. “They’re basically only good to be doll carriers.”
How to avoid getting scammed
Fritz said it is important for parents to look at all of the labels on a car seat before purchasing it.
“It will have the date it was manufactured, where it was manufactured,” she said. “All the necessary labels have to have height and weight restrictions, whether or not it’s approved to be used on an aircraft, the site to go to check for recalls.”
Fritz said missing or fabricated labels are a huge red flag. So is a seat that doesn’t come with an owner’s manual.
Enright added that counterfeit car seats often feel light and cheap.
“The seats might feel very flimsy,” she said. “You don’t want to put an 8- or 9-pound kid in there and pick it up.”
Enright and Fritz agreed it is best to purchase a car seat in person. That way, they said, you can get a sense of its weight and sturdiness and take a look at its labels.
If a parent wants to purchase a car seat online, Fritz and Enright suggested visiting the official website of the manufacturer instead of looking to purchase it from a third-party retailer.
“Purchase it from a reputable source, touch it and feel it,” Enright said. “Even if you get it as a gift, make sure you know where it came from.”
Parents wanting to make sure the seat they have purchased really is safe for their little one can check with experts.
Fritz said hospitals usually have nurses trained in car-seat safety. She teaches a class at Reading Hospital where parents can bring in their seat and have it checked out.
“It’s a fantastic little class where parents can come in and learn about their car seat,” Enright said.
Enright said parents can also visit safekids.org or their local AAA office to find a local car seat technician who can provide guidance, or check with their local police department to see if they have an expert on staff. State police inspect car seats and periodically have special events for that purpose.
Enright and Fritz encouraged all expectant parents, even if they’ve had kids before, to enlist the help of an expert.
“The majority of parents want to do right, but they think it is self-explanatory,” Enright said. “But every car seat and every vehicle is different.”
And getting things right, she said, could be a matter of life and death.
“There is a 100% risk to your child in a counterfeit car seat, even if you’re not in a crash,” she said.
