After the death of a two-month-old baby from asphyxiation in the southern city of Pointe Claire, a Quebec coroner has issued a warning to parents against the common remedy of putting restless infants to sleep in car seats.

In a report made public on Wednesday, coroner Jacques Robinson says the head of a child asleep in an upright position, tends to loll forward or sideways, thereby constricting air passages and cutting-off the flow of oxygen, an analysis confirmed by experts across the board.

This is not the first time putting children to sleep in car seats has come under scrutiny, as Quebec researchers in a 2007 study found the risk factor was especially high in very young babies, who had still not developed the reflex to keep their heads upright.

Probing the death that occurred last February, Robinson found that the mother rose at 6:00 a. m. to soothe her crying baby and then put him to sleep in a car seat in his crib, a trick that normally soothed the colicky infant.

However, an hour later, around the time the baby usually woke up, the mother went to check on the baby, only to discover he was not breathing and his skin was waxily pale white and eyes glassy. She called 911 and performed CPR on the baby, but half an hour later after reaching the hospital, the baby died.

Robinson after examining the body, linked the death to the baby's upright position in the car seat, which caused 'positional asphyxia', as a child asleep in this type of chair, he could result in its head bending far over, thus restricting the upper respiratory passages and cutting off oxygen.

Health and social service agencies have been asked to make new parents aware of these potential risks. A warning that comes two years, after a McGill University study based on a review of several hundred cases of sudden, unexplained infant deaths in Quebec between 1991 and 2000, found 3% occurred in babies in a seated position.

Canadian Pediatric Society and Quebec's National Institute for Public Health, both counsel against using car seats for sleeping, as they are only meant to be used for transporting children in a vehicle. As well, parents have been warned not to allow very young children to sleep for more than an hour during car rides and to regularly adjust the infants' head and neck position.

Danielle Grenier, Director, Medical Affairs, Canadian Paediatric Society says: 'The safest place for a sleeping child is in its crib, stretched on its back. A car seat is for just that - a car. It's an excellent tool, but a child, especially a young child, whose head is very heavy relative to its body, must be checked frequently.'