(KAIR)--The Atchison Hospital will be conducting a child safety seat awareness program this upcoming weekend, aimed to educate parents and other caregivers on how to properly secure their child in a vehicle.

 Lavon Harmon is a Registered Nurse in the hospital's Emergency Department, and she says there are many different care seats available for kids, it all depends on the child's age and weight. It starts with an infant car seat, and that generally goes up to twenty pounds, and should be placed in the back of the vehicle in a rear facing position. She adds that the current recommendation is that you keep your child in that position until they are at least two years old.  After two years of age, a child can advance to a forward facing car seat that uses a five point restraint system.

As a nurse in the ER, Harmon says she has seen some of the injuries that have resulted from an improperly restrained child, most of which that were out of the age range of a car seat, but should have been in a booster seat, but parents were not aware that that was required. She says that most are not the result of a large vehicle crash, but rather smaller incidences such as someone hitting the brakes a little too hard to avoid hitting something in front of them.

Harmon says that in the past ten years, 9-thousand children twelve years old and younger have died in motor vehicle crashes. Over half of those children were not properly restrained.

The Atchison Hospital's Child Safety program will take place this Saturday from 10:00AM-1:00PM in the hospital's west parking lot. Child passenger safety techs will be available to assess your current seat, and new seats will be available, free of charge, for those in need.

Information will also be provided on current child restraint laws and appropriate use of the seats.