Every day, thousands of children are put at risk because they aren’t properly restrained in the car.

Rhode Island families can make sure their young passengers are protected with the help of the Seats 4 Safety program at Hasbro Children’s Hospital when Child Passenger Safety Week culminates in National Seat Check Saturday on Saturday, Sept. 29.

The Seats 4 Safety program is hosting a free, public event to educate parents and caregivers about how to properly install car seats and booster seats in their cars. Certified child passenger safety technicians from the Injury Prevention Center at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and other agencies will provide one-on-one inspections of car safety seats. Free booster seats will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last on Sept. 29 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the parking lot of AAA East Providence, 12 River Road, East Providence.

The American Academy of Pediatrics on Aug. 30 updated its car safety seat guidelines. It now advises parents to keep their child in a rear-facing seat until they reach the seat's maximum height or weight limit. That means that many kids would keep using rear-facing seats until they're about 4 years old. 

The new AAP policy also recommends that older kids continue to use forward-facing safety seats and booster seats until they reach the maximum height and weight recommended by the manufacturer, regardless of age. Correctly used child safety seats can reduce the risk of death by as much as 71 percent among infants, 54 percent among toddlers and 45 percent among children ages 4 to 8, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.