Check The Back: guest post by Melissa Blakeney

One day, I happened upon an article from the Washington post entitled "Fatal Distraction”, ever since, I have been telling everyone I know about this horrendous tragedy. I have found that on average 38 children per year have died from a heat stroke related illness in a car seat since 1998. A car with cracked windows can reach the high temperature of 109 degrees in a matter of 15 minutes, at 104 degrees a child’s internal organs will begin to shut down, and in 2014 there were 31 deaths with more than half of these children were under the age of 2.  Everyone always says “oh well that would never happen to me! I love my children!” but the reality is that it is almost always a parent or loved one who does love and care for the child immensely.  This tragedy is usually an accident that occurs when the person driving the child is out of their normal routine, the child is in a rear facing car seat, and the child is asleep.


My research lead me to be motivated to start a movement in America called “CHECK THE BACK” as my Girl Scout Gold Award project. "Check The Back" reminds parents and everyone to always check the back before walking away from the car.  It could be as simple as putting your purse in the backseat with the baby or a reminder on your phone. My personal plan was to write check the back on a clothes pin and to clip it onto the car seat when it is not in use, then, when the baby is put into the car seat you would put the pin either on your shirt, the sun visor in the car, or your key chain so when you get out you see it and are reminded of the child.

As I was working on this "Check The Back" project, technology started to catch up and now you can download an app on your iPhone to help you remember your child. called precious cargo for 99 cents. Now just because all these facts may have you thinking that rear facing car seats are bad and that you need to turn them around does not mean you should. Children should stay rear facing as long as possible in case of an accident. But to help with this, Evenflo has created a car seat with the technology in it to help remind parents of the child in the back seat.