Children’s bones study could lead to design of safer car seats

The study, the first on infant bone strength in relation to age/weight using models developed from modern medical images, is published in the Journal of Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology.

The research - which involved groups from the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and The Children’s Hospital Charity - used detailed CT scans of bones to generate computer models to set up scenarios looking at how a different amount of force affects the bones, bending and twisting the bones to detect the breaking point.

These non-invasive techniques created 3D models of the femur (thigh bone) in the study of children’s bones in the newborn to three-year-old age range.

Current testing for car seats in simulated crash tests often use scaled down models of adults to simulate a child in a given situation. Anatomically, toddlers have very different bone structure to adults as their bones are not fully formed and still growing.