An about face-on front-facing car seats

The nation's largest organization of pediatricians is telling its members and parents that children riding in cars should remain in rear-facing child safety seats until at least their second birthday and preferably even longer.

This reverses advice many pediatricians gave parents for years that children's car seats should be turned around shortly after their first birthday.

The new policy from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published Monday in the Pediatrics medical journal, is buoyed by research that shows children younger than 2 are 75 percent less likely to die or be severely injured in a crash if they are in a rear-facing child restraint.

Equally important, the academy now recommends that children remain in a seat with a five-point safety harness as long as possible and should only transition to a booster seat that relies on the car's adult seat belts when children exceed the height and weight limit for the five-point harness.