COLUMBUS, Mich. – When her first son was born, Megan Murphy bought a highly rated, high-priced car seat -- only to find she had to use a pool noodle to make it stay level.
"I couldn't believe that the car seat that we had purchased wouldn't work in our car. I thought we had a standard car that pretty much any car seat would work," said Murphy.
A soon-to-be-released study from the Ohio State University College of Medicine finds that's not uncommon. Researchers measured factors like the angle of rear seats, their width and the role headrests play.
In an extensive compatibility study, they tested 59 car seats, in 61 vehicles, for a total of nearly 36-hundred different combinations. They found the cars and car seats were not compatible a whopping 42 percent of the time.
Julie Bing is the research engineer who led the study. She says improper alignment could create risks.
"The angle that a rear-facing child restraint is manufactured to sit at, doesn't always match up with the seat pan angle of the vehicle. So, that recline angle is very important because a newborn baby for example, needs to be reclined far enough to keep its head upright," said Bing. "If the baby sits upright too far, the head can fall forward and cause breathing problems."
With forward-facing car seats, the car head rests may prevent the seat from fitting flush against the back.
Bing says before you go shopping, measure your back seat so you can compare the dimensions with different brands of car seats.
"It might look great on the shelf and have all these great safety ratings but if it doesn't fit in your vehicle then it may not be the best option for you," said Bing. "We really recommend that parents see if they can try it in their vehicle before they purchase it."
Advice echoed by Murphy.
"You just assume that any car seat is going to work in any car and, you know, we certainly found out multiple car seats later that we almost had to try the car out on the car seat and vice versa to make sure that it was going to work."
The full study will be published in October in the journal "Traffic Injury Prevention."
Free car seat inspections are available at various locations. To find one near you, click here.