Car Seats & Shopping Carts: Not A Safe Mix

The ability to transport baby easily outside of the car is one of reasons many parents choose an infant-only car seat for their baby. If you've been putting baby's car seat on top of your grocery store cart while shopping, though, you may want to re-think your strategy. While it sometimes seems like infant car seats are made to fit in the top of a shopping cart, this practice is fairly dangerous and has resulted in enough injuries that the American Academy of Pediatrics now warns against using car seats and shopping carts together.

Even if your baby's car seat appears to latch onto the shopping cart, it isn't designed to be used that way and can come loose unexpectedly, as one mother in San Antonio found out. Her baby is fine now, but the fall from the shopping cart caused bleeding on the brain and required a hospital stay.

I was a "car seat on the shopping cart" mom occasionally when my daughter was small. We both preferred shopping with her in a baby carrier, though, usually a simple sling. I wasn't aware of the safety advantage of carrying her close to me while shopping back then, but I enjoyed the snuggle time and the fact that she usually fell asleep that way. AAP also suggests a wearable baby carrier as a safer alternative to a car seat on the shopping cart.

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