Do you need a pregnancy seatbelt adjuster, and are they safe? Drive investigates what’s out there and what missing legislative links are allowing some sellers to push products with false safety claims.
EXCLUSIVE
Babies and young children need appropriate child seats when travelling in the car – this is a fact and is enshrined in law – but what can you do to protect your unborn baby?
You can buy products known as pregnancy seatbelt adjusters or modifiers, but should you? And are they safe?
We’ve examined the laws around them, or lack thereof, and here’s what you need to know before you buy into all of the hype.
Do you need a special seatbelt when pregnant?
The simple answer to this is no. All of the states and territories officially advise pregnant women that to keep mum and baby safe, they should just wear a seatbelt properly as it is intended.
This is because regular car seatbelts have been designed following Australian Design Rules (ADRs) and extensively crash-tested so that a vehicle can go on sale in Australia.
RELATED: Should pregnant drivers be allowed to use the carpool lane?
According to Baby Bunting, Australia’s largest pregnancy and baby products retailer – which has confirmed to Drive it does not sell pregnancy seatbelt adjusters – the safest way to wear a seatbelt while you’re pregnant is to make sure the lower strap is underneath your bump and firmly across your pelvis, as close to your lap as it can sit.
The sash part of the seatbelt should come down across your chest, travelling from your shoulder down diagonally, staying above your bump. The goal is to avoid your seatbelt sitting directly on your bump.
In every state and territory of Australia, all passengers in a car must wear a seatbelt – it is illegal not to. Wearing a seatbelt while you’re pregnant is especially important because it reduces the risk of injury to you or your unborn baby in the event of an accident.
Official advice from Australian transport and health authorities consistently supports this view that the correct use of existing, ADR-compliant seatbelts during pregnancy is the safest thing to do. There is no widespread endorsement of pregnancy seatbelt adjusters from these bodies.
A recent study from the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) examining seatbelt use among pregnant drivers in Australia found that while almost all of the 1491 participants reported always wearing their seatbelt while driving (99.1 per cent), the study found that only 41.4 per cent were wearing them properly – leading to “significant concerns about…the impact on safety”.
Associate Professor Sjaan Koppel, lead author of the study and head of Monash’s Behavioural Science team, said more education was needed through public health campaigns.
“This study underscores a significant gap in correct seatbelt positioning among pregnant drivers. Despite the clear safety benefits of correct seatbelt use, the majority of pregnant occupants were not positioning their seatbelt correctly,” she said.
Are pregnancy seatbelts legal in Australia?
Yes and no. It’s pretty complicated, there’s a lot of ambiguity around the legislation that applies to them, but essentially, there’s a huge gap in the law that experts believe needs to be urgently addressed.
While child seats sold in Australia must adhere to both Australian Design Rules and a mandatory Australian Standard, the same cannot be said for pregnancy seatbelt adjusters.
Seatbelts generally must comply with either Australian Standards or ADRs, which the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts is responsible for.
A spokesperson told Drive, “The Department regulates the import and first provision of road vehicles in Australia.
“Modifications or additions to vehicles after first provision – such as the use of aftermarket seatbelt extenders – are not regulated under the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018, they fall under the jurisdiction of the state or territory regulators.
“These regulators have a requirement in their legislation that vehicles should continue to comply with the applicable Australian Design Rules.”
This means that despite there being no federal law in place regarding these products, there are still general regulations that apply to vehicle modifications, and the states and territories are responsible for certifying anything that changes how a vehicle’s original seatbelt performs.
In New South Wales, for example, Transport for NSW (TfNSW) explicitly cautions against the use of aftermarket seatbelt accessories without prior consultation with TfNSW or a certifier under the Vehicle Safety Compliance Certification Scheme (VSCCS).
In Victoria, modifications require a VASS (Vehicle Assessment Signatory Scheme) Approval Certificate authorised by VicRoads to ensure they meet the standards for registration.
Other states have similar schemes for vehicle modifications, but specific public guidance on pregnancy seatbelt adjusters is less prominent.
Beyond this, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is responsible for safety issues concerning aftermarket replacement parts or accessories that are not “like-for-like”.
This distinction is crucial, as many seatbelt accessories, including most pregnancy adjusters, would fall into this category.
These products may also be subject to general consumer goods safety provisions under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), even if no specific mandatory safety standard exists for them.
A spokesperson for the ACCC told Drive, “There are a range of consumer product safety mandatory standards and bans for certain products under the ACL. Aftermarket pregnancy seatbelts are not subject to a mandatory standard or ban.
“Under the ACL, consumers receive automatic rights, called consumer guarantees, when they purchase goods. This includes that products are fit for purpose, are of acceptable quality (which means being safe, durable and free from defects), and match their description.
“If a business fails to meet these guarantees, consumers have a right to a remedy. The remedy businesses should provide will depend on the circumstances, but can include a refund, a repair or a replacement.
“Consumers can report an unsafe product to the supplier directly and to the ACCC via our website.”
The problem with this is a pregnancy seatbelt adjuster may very well meet the description of the product given by the business and seem, on the face of it, to be of an “acceptable quality”, but you’re not going to know whether it is safe or not unless you have a crash.
In fact, Drive has found that independent, comparative crash-testing of pregnancy seatbelt adjusters in Australia by recognised safety bodies appears to be almost entirely absent.
Standards Australia, which is a non-governmental organisation tasked with providing a framework for ensuring the safety, quality, and performance of products, services, and systems locally, told Drive that there is no specific standard for aftermarket seatbelt accessories and more testing is required.
“The Australian Standard AS 5384 was published in 2023 and sets out requirements for aftermarket seatbelt accessories. AS 5384 specifically excludes accessories designed for use by pregnant occupants.
“While these accessories were considered in the most recent work, a decision was made that further dynamic testing needed to be completed before any standards provisions would be included,” a spokesperson said.
Are pregnancy seatbelt adjusters safe?
Being pregnant is one of the most exciting, but also daunting, and anxiety-inducing times of a woman’s life, and it doesn’t end there – the worry stays with you for life.
While not all problems can be solved, many can – there are creams for nappy rash, Panadol for fevers… For the troubled parent, there are numerous products that can be bought at any hour of the day or night and delivered promptly to your door.
But as a new parent, or even an expecting one, it’s easy to get drawn into the hype around certain products and the idea that you need to have every gadget and gizmo going to be a good parent and keep your child safe.
However, local and international safety organisations and experts have raised significant concerns about devices such as pregnancy seatbelt extenders, citing potential risks including incorrect force distribution, introduction of belt slack, and component failure, which could compromise occupant safety.
No specific ADRs currently govern aftermarket accessories designed to modify these existing systems, such as pregnancy seatbelt adjusters.
This gap means that claims of “ADR compliance” by manufacturers of such accessories typically mean the products do not interfere with the car’s original seatbelt compliance or have only been tested against selected clauses of existing ADRs, but they don’t adhere to a dedicated standard for the accessory itself.
Industry insiders have told Drive that the gap in the law is a major issue for consumer protection and road safety.
“We need a solution [to keep unborn babies safe], but these belts need to be worn properly, and they’re not always,” one source told us.
There are a variety of pregnancy seatbelt adjusters out there for sale on places like eBay or AliExpress, and often they are cheap and made from materials such as nylon or plastic and offer no evidence of having been crash-tested – in fact, many have disclaimers that state as such.
Only one has any real safety credentials, and that is the Tummy Shield.
It was invented by engineer George Baladi after he and his wife were involved in a near crash, hitting the brakes hard. At the time, his wife was seven months pregnant, and when their daughter was born, it was discovered she had a devastating brain injury.
In 2008, the Tummy Shield underwent both static and dynamic crash tests at the Crashlab facility in western Sydney, which is also used by ANCAP, and was found to comply with ADR 5/04 for anchorages, ADR 4/03 for seatbelts, and ADR 69/00 for full frontal impact occupant protection.
ADR 4/03 is designed to ensure vehicle occupants are restrained by their seatbelts under impact conditions, are not ejected, and assist the driver in keeping control.
ADR 5/04 is there to make sure seatbelts are adequately anchored to the vehicle, and ADR 69/00 evaluates the performance of vehicle safety systems, including seatbelts, and their interaction with other components like airbags, in protecting occupants during head-on collisions.
But while Tummy Shield adheres to these rules, because there is no pregnancy-dedicated law, there is no legal requirement that guarantees similar products would protect the life of an unborn child in the event of a crash.
“In terms of legislation, Tummy Shield would absolutely endorse a standard for pregnancy seatbelt devices,” a spokesperson told us.
“Other products should be purchased with extreme caution due to the materials they are constructed from and the lack of ADR compliance.”
Have you used a pregnancy seatbelt adjuster or changed how you wear a seatbelt when pregnant? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The post ‘Use extreme caution’: The unregulated car accessory pregnant women are being duped into buying appeared first on Drive.