You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey, it's Mariel. I'm not a parent yet, but I am a Titi. And even from where I sit,

when that little baby comes on the scene and they're so tiny and helpless and their little skull

hasn't even fused yet, it's terrifying. And then you tell me

I'm supposed to put this baby in a car? Have you seen how people drive? And I know, of course,

buy a car seat, right? But how do you pick one? There's a lot of decision making as a parent and

especially as a new parent. And it's very overwhelming. And it's important because you

don't get to choose your crash. You don't know when a crash is going to happen. You don't know,

you know, what direction it's going to happen. So you have to make sure that your child is protected

for every single car ride. And right, like, we're all doing the best we can.

That's Emily Thomas, the Associate director for auto safety at Consumer Reports.

She's also a mom, and she has a PhD in pediatric injury biomechanics.

She says kids are a lot safer in cars than they used to be in decades past, but traffic

crashes are still a leading cause of death

for children in the U.S. and around the world.

The research shows that car seats and booster seats significantly lower that risk,

but it can be hard to know where to start, and there are endless options to choose from.

There are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration,

but ultimately, as a parent,

you can rest assured that, one, every car seat that's sold in the United States has to meet

a federal minimum safety standard.

Meaning that any new car seat you buy has been rigorously crash tested.

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