Safety for the little ones

The slogan "security for all" has recently taken on a new meaning. After all, an unborn child who rides with his mother in a car also has his rights.

The slogan "security for all" has recently taken on a new meaning. After all, an unborn child who rides with his mother in a car also has his rights.

Lately, Volvo has been researching unusual crash tests. For this, a special model of a virtual mannequin of an advanced pregnant woman was created. Then the risk of miscarriage is greatest. The Volvo center in Gothenburg is running simulations of a frontal collision. A big advantage of the digital testing method is the ability to scale the mother and baby model with the same dimensions of the car, seat, seat belts and gas bottles. This gives engineers the ability to track the force and time of belt tension at various points in the body and simulate the stresses acting on the placenta and fetus.

Can seat belts be dangerous to the health of a pregnant woman and her baby? The test results show that the belts should be absolutely fastened, but it is important that the waist part is fastened as low as possible. Such fastening, however, leads to the fact that both sections of the belt hold the woman's body at the time of the accident, and the placenta and its heavy contents - the child - freely succumb to the force of inertia. This can cause two types of injury: detachment of the placenta and cutting off the oxygen supply to the baby, or the impact of the fetus on the mother's pelvis.

The analysis will be useful for developing safer three-point seat belts for new Volvo models.

Meanwhile, the Americans have already patented special seat belts for pregnant women. Adequate hip incision avoids injury. The device works like a seat belt in a child seat or as a multi-point belt in a rally car. In the US, about 5 women miscarry every year as a result of injuries in car accidents.