Preferred Car Seat Carrying Differences

Using a portable car seat is a common daily task for postpartum women and those in parenting roles and there is a lack of research related to the biomechanical response to this external load. During child-care related lifting tasks, the strength and muscle activation in postpartum women is significantly reduced when compared to nulliparous, never having given birth, controls.  Exploring the effects of dynamic load carriage is a step toward understanding lower extremity compensation patterns that may be present in the postpartum population and potentially place this population at increased risk for the development of overuse injuries and a prolonged postpartum recovery phase. The vast majority of biomechanical child carrying related studies focus on women and do not consider how potential differences in car seat carrying method between men and women or between those who have experience with this task and those who do not.