waylon1226

Mobey, I was trying to decide whether a pediatric restraint and backboard 2-in1 hybrid would be of any use. Like I stated earlier on in the thread, I am developing a pediatric restraint as a summer project.

What about a disposable restraint? One that is around $20 a pop and uses velcro. Would that be of any interest?

Hey guys, can you estimate the following figures for me? 1) How many calls does your service get per day? 2) How many pediatric calls does your service get per day? 3) How many pediatric calls require a full body restraint per day? Thanks!

I'm working on a design that incorporates a hard backboard for immobilization and built-in straps for harness. How are backboards and straps cleaned? Hose? Washing machine? Thanks!

Question: Which areas of the pediatric patient's body needs to be exposed for medical attention and access? An EMS equipment sales person told me that both the chest and the abdomen need to be exposed becasue otherwise breathing would be impeeded. How much truth is there? Also, what kind of medical proceedures are most often performed on pediatric patients? Thanks!

Tniuqs: That's a good point. I will take disinfection into account as an aspect of cleanability. Right now, my only solution to not using Velcro is to use three-pronged plastic snapfit buckles. If anyone has better ideas, please post. I have seen the Papoose but thought the problem is that one has to buy all four sizes, which will cost more than $2000. Storage might be a problem with the Papoose system, too. Do you know if the Papoose can be fastened to cots? It doesn't say on the link you posted. Thanks a lot!

Pedi-mate seems to be the most compact pediatric restraint system when stored. Has anyone experienced any difficulties with the product? What's good and what's bad about it? Do you think it's better than conventional car seats?

Good points. One of the main challenge of the design is to accommodate the wide range of patient sizes and weights. Here's a British product (not available in the US) similar to the pedimate. It's called the ACR (ambulance child restraint) and it has three sizes of restraints. I might look into something of the sort. What do you think about it? http://www.paraid.co.uk/p-1-ACR-(Ambulance-Child-Restraint).aspx 2c4, I came across the LSP Pediatric Immobilizer at an AMR site. Medics there seem to think that the Velcro straps aren't suitable for EMS purposes. Have you had any trouble with them? Thanks a lot for posting!

Sorry, I should have said that of the medics I've talked to (not many) and from the posts on the forums, I got the impression that most medics either uses customers' own car seats or no restraints when transporting pediatric patients. I agree that the tone I used was a little over-the-top, so sorry about that. I started the topic to foucs discussion on pediatric restraints on the forums becuase so far I've only come across bits of discussion here and there. I'm an undergraduate mechanical engineering and industrial design student currently working on a research project looking at pediatric restraint designs as a summer project. I'm in the research and benchmarking stage right now and hopefully from the input on this thread, I will be able to gather good information to generate some design concepts. So thanks to everyone who has contributed so far! Keep it rolling! Thanks UGLy! So where do you store the child seats in your rigs? Don't they take up a lot of space? Also, how heavy or how big does a child have to be in order to not require a child seat per your opinion? As I responded to doc's post, this is for a summer research project aimed at possibly generating some design concepts. Thanks a lot for posting!

Just wondering how medics are keeping kids safe in transport. So far most medics confirm using car seats or no harness at all. Some even let parents hold their kids (usually toddlers), which should NOT be tolerated. So what do you do?