I think the challenge here might be that, as the article says, this is all just hypothetical and hasn't been empirically tested. It also sounds like a lot of the reasoning predates modern babywearing equipment quite a bit.

With our kids, we used two different devices. One was just a long strip of cloth that you tie in a special way. The other was a more structured carrier with straps and buckles and all that good stuff. For both of them, the child faces toward the parent, so they would be rear-facing relative to the plane. And both have an option to fully support the head. The main purpose there is just to protect their neck while sleeping or during moderate activity, but it would offer at least some additional protection against neck injuries in a crash, rough landing, or during periods of turbulence.

Perhaps crush injuries are more likely with the baby strapped to you, but honestly I would be more worried about a parent holding their baby being more likely to drop them in the aisle during an evacuation, which would be more likely to endanger everyone behind them on the plane as well.

> For soft babywearing carriers, the outlook is also grim. The kinematics of the baby, adult, carrier and airplane seat lead to crush injuries that are worse than the poorly restrained arm hold version.

The point is that the "return" - in a vanishingly tiny number of cases, the kinematics is very slightly better (maybe I buy that it is slightly better, without doing research, but it can't possibly be much better) - is not at all worth the "investment" - every single parent of every single baby on every single flight having to put up with a very real annoyance.

Not sure how much we need to optimize for this. Plane crashes are rare. I'm happy to risk a baby seat crashing into me if my plane crashes if it means the 99.99987% of the flights are slightly better.

If you have lethal babies and/or lethal rigid carriers flying around an airplane in a crash, I think you've got a severe enough crash that most of these arguments are picking bellybutton lint. I'd vastly prefer the FAA focus on the rulemaking around ensuring that I'm not in such a crash than worry about what happens if I'm in such a crash. The chances that I get into an accident which is severe enough that I get killed by a flying baby, but I would have otherwise survived, are exceptionally low.

There is an easy and FAA-approved child restraint system called CARES. My wife and I purchased one and used it with great success. The flight attendants had never seen one, so it comes with a card for you to show them.

https://www.amsafe.com/kidsflysafe-com/

> Logically extrapolated, in this scenario, the airline becomes responsible for the baby's wellbeing. And I don't think that's a good place for the airlines to be?

Aren't airlines responsible for the well-being of everyone on a plane? That seems like it kind of goes with the territory of charging money for hurtling people across the sky in a giant metal box.

I would settle for being allowed to use something like the CARES universally which is currently a total crapshoot. Even car seats are still a challenge if traveling internationally. We’re advised to do all this stuff to keep our kids safe but the airlines and plane manufacturers and fitters don’t really do anything to support it globally. In a couple days I get to carry a car seat around Europe because the airline won’t let me use anything else.

> a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile

Rigid carriers are already permitted on planes, as long as they're FAA approved (which many are). You attach them with the seatbelt, and the flight attendants check.

What I'm proposing in this post is that the FAA not require parents to remove lab infants from babywearing carriers.

> Yes, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy to use or consumer friendly. The ideal solution would have the baby with their back facing front, and the attached carrier facing inwards towards the seat.

There is an existing international standard (ISO 13216) for child safety seats in cars:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isofix

It could be added to airplanes seats.

I don't think that's actually what the FAA has reasoned.

FAA calls all of these devices, in general, child restraint systems. Rigid seats with harnesses are allowed under FAA rules. The real consideration is blocked egress, since a large, rigid device strapped to a seat could actually make egress more challenging. That is covered in a more subjective advisory circular, which allows airlines to make policy, e.g., it may only be used at a window seat of a non-exit row.

Since FAA just this month has decided to start enforcing a 1992 rule requiring even so much as a paper cup to be stowed before pushback citing the egress concern, we might even expect some new policy on this.

That solution already exists actually. You buy a ticket/seat for the infant and use an FAA approved carrier. For example, the nuna pipa rx is FAA approved for this use.

It's not a popular choice because you have to pay full price for the seat, so lap-carrying the baby can save quite a bit of money. Once the baby is 2, you can no longer lap carry them, so that option goes away. There's FAA approved options for small children for whom the lap belt would be inappropriate that are different from the infant seats.

> There is a deeper issue, in a crash,

you'll be dead so it won't matter much.

Can you link your kinematics? Modern science is much closer to the priests of old. Academics leverage their credentials to present untested predictions as science. Their ideas are considered correct because of their expertise and the institutions they belong to, not because the ideas have been thoroughly tested.

This is religion, not science.

I think most (all?) car seats for babies are designed to be used with the baby facing the rear?

Thing is a rigid car seat is what you ARE allowed.

Is a rigid carrier more dangerous as a projectile, or more so as an obstacle to evacuation?

how common are airpoane crash injuries?

> a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile.

No it doesn't.

>a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile

Too smaht for me to understand.

Can you explain your reasoning why is that the case with carrier seats but not with <literally_every_other_hard_object> including human bodies and their skulls which are way sturdier than plastic moldings?

>Worst comes to worst

I only ever heard/said this. Seeing it in print, I suddenly realize it must be "worse comes to worst"

there is a use for the other phrase (but nobody uses it this way), should the worst (thing) come to the worst (people), then... just desserts?

Most airlines offer bassinets for babies. You can only get them in front rows where they get attached to the wall in front of the seats. They’ve got a mesh top that your supposed to keep zipped up while the baby is in there.

I'll bet that is less of an issue than the issue of evacuation.

Currently, aircraft seatbelts are designed for very quick release when needed with no training or muscle memory needed, shove your hand at your waist and pull the metal flap and it immediately comes apart. This seems like it could be an issue with baby carriers, since a) you can probably expect a bit more complex arrangement of straps buckles and b) lack of muscle memory or training on presumably a different style of carrier than what you ever ever use outside an airplane.

A second issue that comes to mind, how to do seating arrangements? Imagine a parent struggling to remove baby during a emergency. Imagine a 3 seat row window side, where others are stuck waiting for parent to release baby.

This seems like a certification nightmare