Can you imagine taking your baby in a car without a proper and safe child seat- one without a harness or a latch? Scary, right! That’s exactly how it used to be in the 1900s when parents with cars wanted to take their babies out for a drive. Let us fathom how child seats have evolved through time, government regulations, and technological advancements and so on.
From the time when the first cars were put on roads in the 1900s, modifications, adjustments and tweaks were made to seats to protect the ones that were driving the machines and the ones who accompanied. Minimal to zero considerations were given to seats for young infants and babies.
The first child seats ever made were solely built to fulfil the purpose of raising the child to a certain height from which he or she could watch the passing visuals. It was basically a kind of a burlap sack with a drawstring that could be hung over the headrest on the passenger’s seat. The ever so important factor of safety was not addressed by the manufacturers of such seats. Imagine the nightmare the parents might have had to go through to safely transport their offspring!
It was in 1933 that the first recognized baby seat or shall we say booster seat was manufactured by the Bunny Bear Company. These propped back seat riders up so that parents could check their babies. A decade later, manufacturers came up with canvas seats attached on metal frames that could be fixed to the car’s front seat so that the baby could get a better view through the windshield. Talk about upgrades!
Once the concept of seat belts for safety was introduced in the 1960s, child seat safety ideas and regulations were propelled. Researchers and manufacturers across Europe (precisely the United Kingdom and Sweden) and the US started coming up with revolutionary ideas and innovations that laid the foundations for the modern-day baby seats that we see today. All such designs had one important criterion to adhere to – safety.