Leaving a child in a car, even for a few minutes, can cause life-long effects and can be fatal. The risk of heat exhaustion is higher for babies and children than for adults. There is no safe amount of time to leave a baby or child in a car.
Children are more vulnerable to heat
The body temperature of babies and young children rises three to five times faster than older children or adults. Although taking babies and young children to run quick errands can take extra time, it can be lifesaving.
It may seem safe enough to leave children in the car for an errand as the engine and the air-conditioning have been on and the car seems cool. Once the engine is turned off, even a cool car rapidly heats up. Cars are not well insulated, and sunlight exposure will quickly heat the car temperature by up to 30 degrees higher than the outside temperature.
Within the first five minutes of closing your car doors, the temperature inside can increase by as much as 75 percent. Leaving the windows down slightly has little effect on the inside car temperature with large cars heating up just as fast as smaller ones.
Always check the back seat before leaving the car.
Dangerous distractions
Routine activities, such as driving to work or grocery shopping, can become so familiar that we almost do them without thinking, making it easier for other things to distract us. Even a slight change to a routine, like dropping a child at daycare on the way to work, could be forgotten as it is outside of the norm.
Our brains can even create false memories that the child had already been dropped off. This loss of awareness or memory is known as fatal distraction, and it can happen to anyone. It could have fatal consequences if a child is left in a car.
Hotter temperatures can also reduce focus and increase irritability, disturbed sleep, and brain fog. Long-term symptoms of COVID-19 can cause similar symptoms.
Research suggests using cues and reminders to reduce the risk of fatal distraction. However, if the reminder or cue is forgotten, it becomes difficult to remember the task.
To combat this, we’ve developed a car-key tag as a reminder that prompts you to check for your baby in the back seat every time you take your keys out of the ignition.
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