In a word, YES. More than 170,000 pregnant women are involved in car accidents every year, resulting in thousands of lost pregnancies or injuries to the baby. Some of the injuries can cause pregnancy complications which can be life-threatening to the mom-to-be.  You see, the existing seat belt system was not designed or tested to protect women who are driving while pregnant; in fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the current seat belt system exposes an inherent risk for injury, or even death, to an unborn baby.

This is because the standard seat belt is designed to secure an occupant in the car seat by engaging the hip bones. However, beginning at the start of the second trimester, your unborn baby moves above and in front of your hip bones—directly beneath the seat belt. When engaged by an accident, or even a sudden stop, the belt compresses with extreme speed and force, violently displacing and even crushing your unborn baby.

While we’ve talked to many prenatal health care providers — most of whom have seen miscarriages caused by car crashes and are excited to see something available to reduce that number — we haven’t talked to all 55,000 OB/Gyns or 12,000 midwives in the US. You can help us by downloading our doctor report and sharing the information with your doctor.

Really that depends on what you compare it to. The price tag is much less than the lifetime cost of caring for a child with a head injury caused by a crash in utero like the inventor of the Tummy Shield or the heartache experienced by losing a pregnancy during a crash like Taylor losing her baby Bailey.

It just looks like a simple cushion with a hook, but the Tummy Shield is a highly engineered piece of equipment that consists of a heavy stainless steel center with stainless steel anchor molded as one piece. It is strength tested to ensure it can withstand real crash forces. Tummy Shield has been through several rounds of crash testing to make sure it increases safety for pregnant women and their unborn babies.

We wish because we want all moms-to-be to be safe. If there was a product we thought could hold up to real crash forces like the Tummy Shield but cost less, we would sell it. Many of the other products available for much less may actually put you and your baby at even more risk when their flimsy materials fail in a crash. Sadly — as innovation often precedes regulation — there are not yet federal standards for testing pregnancy seat belt positioners like there are for car seats and seat belts. So unproven, possibly unsafe, products are on the market.

You can start using the Tummy Shield as soon as you find out you are pregnant or as soon as you learn about the Tummy Shield. We recommend to start using it when you start buying maternity clothes. By then, the pregnancy starts to move outside the protection of the pelvic bones.