The effectiveness of a postpartum hospital education program, designed to increase correct as opposed to mere use of automobile child restraining devices (CRDs), was evaluated. This was based on periodic observations of how infants were being transported rather than on parental reports.

"Correct" use of a CRD entails anchoring the device to the seat of the automobile, with a lap belt, facing rearward, and restraining the child within the CRD by means of a harness. Taking these correct use factors into account, the average (mean) observed correct restraint for ages 0-9 months of program infants was 33.5% as opposed to 9.3% of "General Community" infants.

Well conceived hospital-based postpartum CRD education programs were found to be an effective way of increasing correct use of CRDs, but other methods need to be tried in addition in order to increase correct usage rates still further.