Orbit Baby Safety Information

Latest news: Consumer Reports Withdraws Infant Car seat Report. Learn more.

Dear Loyal Orbit Customer,

Safety comes first at Orbit Baby.

As a leader of innovation in child transportation and safety, Orbit Baby has created patent-pending technologies that make car seats significantly easier to use safely.  Orbit addresses car seat safety in the real world, not just in laboratories.  As the founders of Orbit Baby, we use the Orbit Infant System with complete confidence for our own children because we genuinely feel it is the best product on the market.

Though Orbit Baby's products were not addressed in the recent Consumer Reports article concerning infant car seats, we recognize the importance of consumer awareness and would like to help better educate our customers about car safety. However, since Consumers Union will not divulge the details of how they are conducting their testing, Orbit Baby does not have the ability to comment on our own products relative to the article published by Consumer Reports.

• We are proud of passing the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards testing - our performance even exceeded the requirements in the standards.
  
• All car seats manufactured and sold by Orbit Baby comply with standards set forth by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  They undergo extensive in-house testing as well as testing at multiple independent test laboratories.
  
• We have tested the product under rigorous conditions that simulate the New Car Assessment Program and our product performed well with no failures.
  
• We achieved very low forces on the child dummy in our tests.  In fact, they are some of the lowest forces that the labs have seen and a full 40% lower than the government requires.
  
• We have had no detachments of the Infant Car Seat from the Base during any of our certification testing.
  
• We performed well with both LATCH and seat belt installations.  We also performed well using a seat belt only without the Base.

• Orbit's philosophy is that safety should go beyond the lab: if a parent has a hard time using or installing a product safely, no amount of lab testing will matter. Even with products that seemed to fare well in this recent magazine article, the government has published figures that 4 out of 5 infant car seats are used or installed incorrectly.  Effectively, this renders those 4 seats unsafe no matter how they performed in a government lab.
  
• Our concern about real-world safety is what drove us to develop patent-pending technologies.  For instance, StrongArm is a technology that helps you to consistently install the Orbit car seat system into a safe condition. Just by turning a knob, not only can you easily and safely install your seat every time, your spouse or any other caregiver can also.

• While we feel no need to defend ourselves relative to the article (as we are not addressed in it), we feel a responsibility to better educate our customers on this topic. Please refer to the following linked information sources below to find out what other independent organizations have to say about the recent Consumer Reports article.
  
• Fundamentally, the biggest concern that most of the independent child safety experts have with these Consumer Reports articles is that Consumer Reports does not publish their testing methodologies. It is troubling that Consumer Reports is opaque about their own tests such that they cannot be independently replicated or verified by other experts.
  
• The FMVSS 213 regulated child restraint test is run at 30 MPH because statistics show that the resultant G forces (which are more relevant than the specific speed involved) are more severe than 98% of real-world incidents. As such, the goal is to reduce and minimize injury to children in this regulated condition.
  
• Furthermore, there is the distinct possibility that designing for higher speeds could result in products that are less safe at slower speeds. The design of stiffer products that might pass Consumer Reports’ tests could actually transmit more forces to the child at lower speeds because they are too stiff.

In the end, we are proud of our products and have complete confidence in them. Our philosophy has never been to cut corners, and to always use only the best materials and always apply only the best engineering - how many other companies can say that?  Please feel free to contact us as we are always available to discuss our testing and safety.

Best,

Joseph, Bryan, and The Orbit Team

Questions? Send us an email at support@orbitbaby.com, or give us a call at 1-877-ORB-BABY.

Safe Kids Statement. Learn more about Safe Kids.
JPMA Statement. Learn more about JPMA.
ACTS Press Release. Learn more about ACTS.
CHOP Statement. Learn more about CHOP.