Car Seat Safety

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of injury-related death in Canadian children after infancy. Proper car seat use is the single most effective intervention to reduce child crash fatalities — correct use reduces the risk of death in a crash by up to 71% for infants. Despite this, most car seats are incorrectly installed or used. Nurses at well-child visits have a critical opportunity to assess, educate, and correct car seat use before a crash occurs. For the REx-PN exam, car seat safety questions test knowledge of the four stages, transition criteria, correct harness use, and common errors (coats, front seat, early transition from rear-facing). On the exam, writers often pair stable-sounding options with unstable data—notice the mismatch before you commit. If the stem names a license or role, reread that line; scope errors are classic trap answers even when the clinical topic is familiar. Run a 60-second scan: breathing work and oxygenation, perfusion and end organs, neuro baseline, likely infection sources, and devices that can fail quietly. When two answers feel partly right, pick the one that **reduces...