New Borns Causing New Moms New Distractions While Driving

Bringing new life into the world is a life-altering event. The way you once lived quickly becomes ancient and your worries are no longer centered around just yourself, but the newborn who you now are responsible to take care of.
This mindset might be the most prevalent among mothers who suddenly are willingly to give up everything for the well-being of the child. Sleep, friends and self-preservation all come second to the needs of the baby. While a noble notion of motherhood, it is in fact these neglections that are endangering the baby and mother.

Recent reports and statistics on distracted driving show that new moms are amid the most distracted drivers these days. Tending to the every needs of the baby means a lot of sacrifice for the mom. For instance, the new mom sleeps on average only 5 hours and 20 minutes a night. This sort of fatigue coupled with reaching back to care for a crying baby and trying to accomplish other tasks while driving are contributing factors to the fact that almost 10 percent of new moms have had an accident while driving with their baby. That is nearly three times the rate of the general population.
Finding a concrete solution to this issue is a bit complex, but experts from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Parents Magazine, and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety offer a few tips to help moms avoid dangerous driving behavior.
Among those tips are the following: keep eyes on the road, avoiding use of phone, do not multi-task while driving, scheduling appropriately a time for errands, enlisting help, eliminating distractions, pulling over to tend to baby, sleeping more and watching speed more closely.
Although many of the aforementioned tips can be applied to all drivers, moms in particular need to find a way to sleep more, meaning indulging in a nap every now and then; denying the immediate urge to care for their crying child and instead adding a few minutes to their drive by just pulling over; scheduling a time more conducive to the baby’s habits or asking someone to watch the child so that they have a better chance of a successful errand run.
The world of driving is dangerous as it is. Between cell phones, passengers, navigation systems, stereos, and so much more, there is a lot that can steal the driver’s eyes and attention for a split second and thus cause a distracted driving accident. When you add a baby to this, the life so precious and important to a parent, this attention to the road is stretched even thinner.
Protect the life of yourself and your child and make sure the road has your undivided attention. The safety of your baby coincides with the demands of the road. Neglecting this in favor of your baby will only put them in more danger.