OnlyFans launched in 2016 as a social media platform designed to help influencers, musicians and other creators connect directly with their fans through paid subscriptions.

Adult content creators, in particular, flourished on the platform, with some earning six figures annually – and others bringing in that much in a single month.

While that kind of money may sound enticing in a “should-I-quit-my-day-job-and-give-it-a-shot?” kind of way, the work isn’t easy.

OnlyFans creators say that building a fan base, streamlining your workflow and maintaining a content calendar takes far more strategy and consistency than many people realise.

Plus, the platform itself can be unpredictable: in 2021, OnlyFans announced plans to ban sexually explicit content, only to reverse course days later following intense backlash.

What does it take to make bank on the site? What kind of explicit content are they offering, exactly?

Below, OnlyFans adult content creators who are making it work delve into that, and what they think of the recent controversial Euphoria storyline involving Sydney Sweeney’s character, Cassie, joining the site.

Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.

“I got into OnlyFans while I was in dental school. My family was struggling with medical bills after Covid, and I wanted a way to help support them financially. At first, I saw it as a side hustle, but it quickly became my full-time career. The growth happened really fast. My first month was honestly mind-blowing, and by the second month, I realised this was something real that I needed to fully focus on. Eventually, everyone at my dental job found out, and I ended up getting fired.

When I first started on OnlyFans, I was only posting bikini and lingerie content. There was no nudity at all in the beginning. Over time, my content naturally evolved month by month into more suggestive content, and years later, I eventually released my first boy-girl video.

Across all my platforms, I have around 9 million social media followers total – 4.5 million on Instagram, over a million on TikTok, and another 1 million on Twitter. Building that audience has taken years of consistency and hard work. I’m making roughly over $1 million dollars a month right now, which still feels surreal to say out loud. But I’ve worked incredibly hard to build this business and make it successful.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that this job is somehow easier than a traditional 9-to-5. In reality, I work constantly – holidays, birthdays, weekends, all of it. When you run your own business and want to succeed at a high level, you’re always ‘on.’

Another misconception is that success on OnlyFans only comes from doing extreme or outrageous content. I completely disagree with that. I’m one of the top creators on the platform, and I’ve built my business by creating content I’m personally comfortable making. If your audience connects with what you create, you can absolutely be successful without constantly pushing boundaries.

As for Euphoria, I actually think it’s great publicity when mainstream shows reference OnlyFans because it opens the door for people to better understand how the platform works. Of course, some portrayals are exaggerated or unrealistic, but overall I think it helps normalise conversations around creators and online work.” ― Skylar Maye

“I was working in a strip club during Covid and we immediately shut down, so I had to pivot. Who knew that pivot would change my life forever? I started off more Playboy style: very clean and basic but sensual and sexy. Legs closed.

Then I have gotten more sexually comfortable with myself and exploring new things, so my levels have increased to toy play, but I keep things solo. I have 550,000 subscribers, and I make about $175,000 to $225,000 a month. A bit over $2 million a year.

Content creation is no joke, and it kind of sucks that it’s hard for normal people to understand that, but you go from 9-to-5 to 24/7. We never sleep. We never stop, and we are always hunting for the next creative idea, which can also be draining.

I think that people never understand the business side of it [and think] you can just do this for fun or quick money. That’s not how it works, and you will not succeed, and this will be all over the internet forever. You dive in headfirst, or don’t dive at all. It can be life-changing in both ways, good and bad.” ― Jessica Barton

“In 2018, I jumped straight in at the deep end and started filming content with my partner Josh. The majority of my content is filmed in a super amateur style, leaving in all of the awkward and funny moments. I don’t shy away from showing as much personality as possible, and I pride myself on my content feeling relatable and authentic.

Over the years, I’ve managed to curate a strong brand and build a loyal following, so now I have a steady income and a relatively chilled workflow, but it took a lot of hard work and consistency to get here. On OnlyFans alone, I tend to make anywhere between $10,000 to $40,000 per month. It varies a lot. There are also other platforms where I make a few thousand a month as well – it all adds up.

I’ve worked 9-to-5s where I’d come home and collapse out of exhaustion at the end of the day, so I know how hard it can be. But there are times where I actually miss that. And it can also be quite challenging knowing that your entire income could change overnight and be completely out of your control if an account gets deleted or if a rule changes. It was only a few years ago that OnlyFans themselves said they were banning adult content on their platform altogether. Scary times. Luckily, they quickly backtracked on that, but these are the kinds of life-changing decisions that are out of our control.

I’m not keen on the Euphoria plot line. Firstly – and this is a little selfish – but I like sex work feeling taboo. Before lockdown, when so many new people joined and it became more well-known, if someone asked what you did for a living and you said ‘OnlyFans’ or ‘amateur porn,’ people were shocked, curious and entertained. Nowadays, if you tell someone what you do, it’s more like, ‘Ah yeah, so does my aunt.’ It’s not a dirty little secret anymore – it’s mainstream – and as someone who got into the industry because they have a true love for the naughty things in life, that takes away a bit of the appeal.

Secondly, popular non-sex-worker-run shows tend to paint OnlyFans in a bad, or at least inaccurate, light. Wearing a diaper and dressing up as a baby, as Cassie does, is massively against the rules, for example. There are already so many negative opinions surrounding sex work – we don’t need shows like Euphoria creating new harmful stereotypes and damaging opinions of the industry even more.” ― Jade Vow

“I got into OnlyFans when I was about to be engaged but I didn’t know my partner had already exposed our home videos to the world. I decided not to be sad but just embrace it. When I decided to join, Covid had just hit and I was tired of working three jobs. I was working at a club bartending, working as a home aid and I was serving at a restaurant. In 2022 I finally decided to quit all my jobs and do OF full time. I make $200,000 to $400,000 per year, depending on the economy and my energy that year.

When I first started, I was only shooting solos and randomly dropping tapes that me and my ex had together. Once I decided to make it full-time, I started to explore more into women. I decided to finally live in my truth about the love I have for women. My content now is [broader] than it was when I first started.

After actually locking in with it, I felt more open and free. Sex work has taught me how to fully live in my truth. My fans honestly love my personality and humour. I have fans who ask me to do story times, and then I have fans who just want me to just exist. My favourite request I have ever gotten has to be the time I had to do a karaoke video. The fan knew I liked to sing, so he just wanted to see me happy. Sex work has helped me be able to finally feel liberated about my body. As someone who has dealt with sexual assault, it has helped me gain my feeling of power.

But I hate the way TV depicts sex workers, because they make it seem like we’re just girls who were fucked up and decided, ‘let me do porn.’ With Euphoria, I feel like some points in the show were valid, but it doesn’t depict the industry as a whole. I am a Black woman in this industry, so I get treated a different way than others. On the show, Cassie was praised by the internet and people love her, but I don’t get that love fully. I get mainly hate, with a few dashes of love. I’m labeled as a whore, whereas if you’re white, it’s labelled as liberating. ” ― Majesty Nasty

“I started OnlyFans in the summer of 2021 after my husband passed away. I was trying to support three kids on a middle-income salary while working in HR hiring nurses, and I was drowning in medical bills my husband had acquired before he passed. I also wanted to be present for my kids and be there when they got home from school. One day I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I saw a news segment about another OnlyFans model. The media highlighted how much money she was making, and she was around my age. I thought, ‘That could be me.’ At the time, I didn’t even know what OnlyFans was, but I immediately started researching, building social media accounts, creating a business plan, and launched a few months later.

My first month was good, and within a few months, things were going so well that I quit my job. With content, I started slow. At first, it was more Playboy-style content and tease videos, but over time, it evolved into full adult content. That transition was more about business strategy than comfort. During my first year, I was making over $50,000 a month, and by the next year, I had reached seven figures. This was not luck. It was hard work. And I was excommunicated from the Mormon church, which I grew up in, after I was outed as an OnlyFans creator. But you couldn’t pay me any amount of money to go back to working for someone else.

Today I have over 4 million followers across multiple social media platforms, and it took about two years to build that audience. That growth came from consistency and work ethic. I posted four times a day across platforms, constantly created content, engaged with followers, studied algorithms and built relationships online. Most people think the money comes from OnlyFans itself, but the reality is that the majority of the work happens outside the platform through marketing, social media strategy, content creation, editing, messaging and behind-the-scenes admin work. I regularly work 80-hour weeks.” ― Holly Johnston

“In early 2022, I was unable to really pay my bills at the time working as a personal trainer and going to school, so I made an OnlyFans to make ends meet. I have now left the traditional job market to do OnlyFans exclusively, although I did choose to finish my degrees.

I started off immediately making vanilla content. It was really just me masturbating and interacting with my audience and with the camera. I was really good at talking, so I did a lot of JOIs [jerk off instructions] and just really worked on interfacing and creating this rapport with my audience, so it was a lot of talking, a lot of storytelling, that kind of thing. My content has evolved, it now includes other people, although I’ve maintained that theme of storytelling and trying to really talk and establish some intimacy with the audience, but nowadays I offer girl-girl, boy-girl, fantasy, funny stuff, role playing, like all kinds of different things.

I make anywhere between $250,000 to $360,000 a month, depending on the month, and I have made that for the last six months or so. Doing this is definitely easier for me than a standard job, but it’s… I wouldn’t say that it would be easier for most people. I have really bad ADHD, so this kind of job allows me to hyperfixate, but then back off a little bit. It’s constantly changing, constantly evolving, and that fits in with my brain and how my brain works.

But I think that, like, for most normal people, they’d find it very stressful and they would find it very difficult to establish any kind of rhythm or consistency. If it was so easy, more people would be doing it and the average girl on OnlyFans wouldn’t be making like $200 a month. If it were so easy, everybody on OnlyFans would be making thousands and thousands of dollars, but that’s just not the case. I’ve met girls who are grinding, grinding, grinding and not necessarily making very much money.” ― Kit Barrus

Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor Sarah Michelle Gellar has paid her respects to her former co-star Anthony Head in a touching tribute.

Shortly after the news broke on Friday that Anthony had died at the age of 72, Sarah Michelle, who worked with him on Buffy for many years, took to Instagram to publish a bittersweet post.

Quoting the show’s heartbreaking season five finale, in which Buffy gives a tear-jerking monologue about why she had decided to sacrifice her own life to save her sister Dawn and the world, the post began: ”Tell Giles I figured it out and I’m OK.”

Giles, Anthony’s character in the show, was Buffy’s “Watcher” or mentor on all things slaying, before eventually becoming the titular character’s father figure over the course of the series.

She continued: “Well I don’t have it figured out and I’m not OK.”

“But I know I’m the lucky one because I knew you,” Sarah Michelle wrote, before giving a shout-out to Anthony’s daughters, Daisy and Emily.

“Thank you to Daisy and Emily who not only shared their dad with me, but with the world.”

rah Sarah Michelle’s post included a slideshow of backstage photos of herself and Anthony.

The last slide showed screenshots from an exchange Buffy had with Giles in the season two episode Lie To Me, in which a character Buffy thought was a childhood friend ended up double-crossing her in an attempt to become a vampire.

After Buffy realised she’d been conned by her friend, she turned to Giles for some guidance and comfort.

“Does it ever get easy, life?” Buffy asked Giles, to which he responded: “What do you want me to say?”

“Lie to me,” Buffy then said, prompting Giles to tell her: ”Yes, it’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats.

“And, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and… everybody lives happily ever after.”

Check out Sarah Michelle’s post for yourself here.

Outside of Buffy, Anthony made quite an impact on the small screen, especially here in the UK.

The British actor was well known for playing Rupert Mannion, the smarmy former owner of A.F.C. Richmond, in Ted Lasso, in addition to roles in Little Britain, Merlin and an iconic string of Nescafé ads that aired in the 1980s.

Strength training has so many benefits, it’s hard to keep count. It’s been linked to up to four years of extra life, can help to protect us from falls as we age, may reduce dementia risk, and could maintain your bone health… the list goes on.

A new paper published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has added clarifying details for those hoping to see the most benefits from the activity.

After 30 years of follow-up from 147,374 participants, they found the optimum amount of lifting and resistance training per week for longevity.

This research found that the lowest risk of all-cause mortality was linked to one to two hours (60-119 minutes) of resistance training, especially if it was done alongside aerobic training.

The benefits of strength training seemed to “plateau” at two hours a week in this study, meanwhile.

Speaking to HuffPost UK previously, Dr Suzanne Wylie, GP and medical adviser for IQdoctor, said: “I would generally advise at least two sessions of strength training per week, focusing on all the major muscle groups”.

• 60-120 minutes of strength training a week was linked to 13% lower all-cause mortality risk,
• The risk of death from cardiovascular disease, like heart attack or stroke, was 19% lower,
• The risk of death from dementia was 27% lower,
• The risk of all-cause mortality was 58% lower when 90-120 minutes of strength training was combined with a high level of aerobic activity (30-45 hours a week).

You don’t always need weights to do strength training.

Dr Wylie formerly told us that strength training “might include bodyweight exercises like squats, push-ups, or step-ups, or using resistance bands or weights at home or in the gym”.

The point is that your muscles work against a form of resistance, be that a dumbbell or your own weight.

She added, “The emphasis should be on steady, safe progression rather than attempting heavy lifts immediately”.

If anal sex is on the menu tonight, you might be worried about what you ate beforehand. After all, if letting one rip embarrasses you in yoga class, then getting intimate with a partner can feel even more anxiety-inducing.

Maybe you’re wondering whether that chili and beans for dinner was a terrible idea before a roll in the hay.

And while certain foods can make things a little less comfortable – like, say, chili and beans – experts say there’s also a huge misconception around the idea of being “perfectly prepared” for anal sex.

“There’s this idea that you can be perfectly clean for anal play, but the anus is where poop exits the body,” Javay Frye-Nekrasova, a sex educator at We-Vibe, tells HuffPost. “Mess is to be expected, regardless of how you prepare, because we are human, and that’s life. And that’s OK!”

She adds, “Trust me, even as a sex educator I still have instances where the realities of a booty happen.”

In other words, you don’t need to obsessively restrict food or try to achieve some impossible standard of being ready “back there”.

“The rectum, the part of the body involved in most anal play, is not a storage chamber. For most people, most of the time, it’s actually empty,” Dr. Jenni Skyler, a sex therapist, says. “Stool is stored higher up, in the colon, and only moves down when your body is preparing to have a bowel movement.”

“This is good news,” she continues. “It means that with reasonable preparation, anal play is far less messy than most people fear.”

Still, certain foods can increase bloating, gas, digestive urgency or discomfort, which can make people feel less relaxed and confident during anal play.

Here are the foods experts say are best to avoid before anal sex – and a few suggestions of what to eat instead.

According to Skyler, spicy foods can irritate the digestive tract and speed up digestion, which may lead to looser or more unpredictable bowel movements.

“Spicy foods are not fully broken down during digestion,” she says. “They irritate the digestive tract on the way in and out.”

Registered dietitian Kristen Kuminski adds that capsaicin – the compound responsible for heat in spicy foods – “passes through the digestive tract and causes irritation on the way out.”

If you already know spicy foods tend to upset your stomach, experts say the hours before anal play probably aren’t the time to test your limits with hot wings or extra chili oil.

Heavy, oily foods can sit heavily in the stomach and may contribute to bloating, sluggishness and loose stool.

“Being ‘stuffed’ – pun intended – only makes it more uncomfortable,” Frye-Nekrasova says.

Skyler adds that greasy foods are harder to digest overall, which can make people feel “sluggish and bloated – the opposite of relaxed.”

Beans, lentils, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and onions are all healthy foods, but they can also increase gas production.

Kuminski says high-fibre foods eaten in large amounts right before anal sex are some of the biggest offenders when it comes to bloating and digestive discomfort.

Skyler stresses that passing gas is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of, especially when it happens in the bedroom. But if someone is already anxious about anal sex, feeling bloated or gassy can make it harder to relax and stay present.

“These foods are great,” she says. “Just maybe not at lunch on the day of.”

Even mild lactose intolerance can trigger bloating, gas or digestive upset.

“If you know dairy sometimes disagrees with you, the hours before anal play are a good time to skip the cheese plate and the ice cream,” Skyler says.

Kuminski notes that even mild lactose sensitivity can lead to “bloating and urgency that is badly timed”.

Sugar alcohols like sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol and mannitol – commonly found in sugar-free gum, protein bars and “diet” snacks – are well known for causing bloating and digestive distress.

“This one surprises people,” Skyler says, noting they can sometimes trigger loose stool “quite dramatically”.

Sure, that bottle of wine at dinner might have loosened your inhibitions, but that’s not the only thing it loosened. Alcohol can irritate the digestive tract, while also loosening stool and contributing to dehydration.

But Skyler says there’s another concern, too: drinking heavily can make it harder for people to stay aware of discomfort or pain during anal sex.

“In large amounts we struggle to be present and can override our pain receptors,” she says.

Kuminski similarly notes that alcohol “loosens inhibitions but also loosens gut motility,” which can create unpredictable bowel behaviour.

Even if you haven’t eaten any of the foods above, experts say timing still matters. “A huge meal eaten right before play can trigger the urge for a bowel movement at an inconvenient time,” Skyler says.

Kuminski recommends giving yourself three to four hours after a meal before anal play, adding that “timing matters as much as what you eat.”

Experts generally recommend sticking to foods that support predictable digestion and well-formed bowel movements.

• soluble fibre
• lean proteins
• cooked vegetables
• bananas
• lots of water

Kuminski also suggests low-fibre, easy-to-digest foods in the hours beforehand, including:

• white rice
• eggs
• plain chicken
• bananas

“It’s basically the same logic as eating before a long run or race where you don’t want any GI surprises,” she explains.

But Frye-Nekrasova says people shouldn’t become obsessive or restrictive around food before sex.

Instead, she recommends simply paying attention to your own digestion and giving yourself enough time between eating and anal play.

“A good rule of thumb I follow is to try to stop eating at least three hours before planned anal play,” she says. “Just to give my body enough time to digest food so I can have a bowel movement beforehand.”

She adds that everyone’s digestion works differently, so there’s no perfect formula.

“If you are more regular with your digestion and bowel movements, shorter timeframes could absolutely work for you,” she says.

Rather than stressing over eating “perfectly,” Frye-Nekrasova suggests planning ahead in realistic ways – especially on date nights involving heavier meals.

“If you’re going to dinner and it’s going to be something heavier, then planning an activity afterward to give yourself enough time to digest the food before sex would be a good move,” she says.

Most importantly, she stresses that relaxation and communication matter more than perfection.

“Bodies are weird,” Frye-Nekrasova says. “I know that being told to relax doesn’t actually help anyone relax, but I do want to say it because being relaxed helps our bodies function in the typical, expected way (aka digestion and bowel movements) a lot easier than if we are stressed.”

Frye-Nekrasova adds, “And stressing about being perfectly prepared is actually the opposite of what helps people relax.”

Recently, while hanging out at my friends’ houses, I’ve gotten to listen in as their teens talked about everything from the best new music (who exactly is Yeat?), trending phrases (is 6-7 actually going anywhere?) and their behavioural habits.

Then I asked, for example, where they would go to search for a restaurant recommendation, homework help or advice. The answers to all of these were their friend Chat – as in ChatGPT or similar artificial intelligence chatbots.

Now I knew I was cooked (did I use that right?) years ago when I was still using Google for answers the teens had moved on to TikTok for, but I didn’t fully appreciate – until these conversations – just how all-consuming the use of Chat was in their everyday lives.

So I was also surprised to find out they are overwhelmingly using Chat as not just a friend, but a mental health provider.

As a clinical psychologist, this hits me especially hard. I’ve worked for years to translate information from my studies and the field of psychology to young people in entertaining and easy to understand ways. I have developed programs that help clinicians to work with families and young people to talk through life’s biggest stressors. But at the end of the day, they’d rather go to a bot that doesn’t really know them as a person, just as a data point.

My friend’s children showed me exactly how quickly this generation, very quick to get, well, anything, wanted relief for symptoms of depression and anxiety. They would tell Chat they weren’t feeling well and want to know what could be done about it – all before breakfast.

They said that they didn’t want to schedule an appointment for later or couldn’t hold their distress for a longer period; they wanted to use something that gave them some support in a literal blink of an eye.

As a millennial, I grew up in the “Microwave Generation,” a group of kids known for their desire for instant gratification and having their needs met instantly. What, then, do we need to do to prepare for a generation that not only gets it instantly, but doesn’t even have to move off the sofa to do so? Their expectation that results would be easy to attain and accurate and personalised runs afoul of our current mental health model.

There have been several hit pieces on (and defaced NYC billboards for) the “Friend” device. An orb that goes around the user’s neck, Friend can give unfettered, curated advice throughout the day, accompanying the user through life’s mundane or noteworthy experiences. Many of us have scoffed at it – myself included – but now that I hear what the young people are saying about wanting support after a decade of declining mental health, is it so far-fetched to imagine that they just want to be quickly heard, seen and validated?

Tech companies have spent considerable time and resources to figure out what keeps young people hooked. But young people’s mental health is at stake – they already see themselves less positively, feel more isolated and have learning gaps relative to generations preceding them. Interactive AI – with its capacity to be responsive to youth – may seem like a clear solution.

Except early research hints at what the headlines already show: Great opportunity for “connection” may also come with great danger through compliance. Young people are also less likely to discuss the advice from Chat with loved ones, leading to potentially deadly consequences, such as in cases where teen suicides have been linked to AI chatbots.

These consequences, to say nothing of the known and racial biases of chatbots for Black youth, can lead to greater disparities in mental health outcomes. If Black youth are exposed to high incidents of daily online racism and are engaging in higher rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviours relative to their peers and other times in history, the guidance from internet-culled resources may be dire for that population.

So as adults, we need to think about ways we can support the young people in our lives.

Since Chat, Chatty or any other nickname for the chatbot, is here to stay, how can we learn from what our youth are searching for and be a part of that solution – together? How can we ensure our phones are down long enough for us to actually hear what they are saying? How can we support them knowing that life is in fact filled with ups and downs, not just the most clean or perfect versions of output or editing that we present to the world?

By modelling behaviours that we want to see in them, we can show that it is natural to not know, to ask others, to wrestle with frustration. Show them how you may decide between two choices, or, better yet, use technology to work out a problem together. Use video chat to call someone to talk through a challenging situation so they can hear what conversation skills look, sound and feel like.

Finally, ask them directly about chats with, well, Chat, using questions that open up conversation and invite inquiry and analysis instead of yes or no questions that may close off further discussion.

My hope is that I can intentionally strengthen my relationship with mentees and niblings this year. I might start by asking some simple questions to kick off our discussion: What are the latest songs I should listen to (and will I understand them)? Where did you get those jeans (the back of my storage)? And, most relevant to our conversation here, what are you asking Chat about today?

This latter question may just be the thing that helps one child know they have a friend that is real, all ears and willing to provide steady feedback to life’s tough stuff.

Dr. Riana Elyse Anderson is a licensed clinical and community psychologist, associate professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, and affiliate with Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. She is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project in Partnership with National Black Child Development Institute.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.

Parents in the UK are being urged to keep their children rear-facing in car seats until they’re at least four years old.

Rear Face For Safety said children are up to five times safer travelling rear-facing than forward-facing and is trying to raise awareness of this to save lives and prevent life-changing injuries.

Jenny Everson has firsthand experience of the power of rear-facing. She was driving along a 50mph road in December 2023, when a speeding driver crossed through a gap in the central reservation and collided head-on with her car.

Jenny and her mother, who was travelling in the front passenger seat, were both knocked unconscious by the impact and suffered serious injuries which required lengthy rehabilitation in hospital.

But Jenny’s son Marlo, who was almost three at the time and travelling in a rear-facing car seat, escaped with only minor injuries.

“Had it not been for Marlo’s rear-facing seat, I was told by emergency services he likely wouldn’t be here now,” Jenny said.

“I will be forever grateful I did my research as I’m sure his seat saved his life, or at the very least saved him from serious injury.”

She is now on a mission to raise awareness of the importance of rear-facing seats, adding that “if telling our story helps save just one child’s life, then it’s worth it”.

In the UK, it’s a legal requirement for babies under 15 months of age to travel rear-facing. This is because infants’ heads are proportionally heavier than older children’s compared to their bodies, so their necks are more delicate.

According to Halfords, having the car seat in a rear-facing position protects them better in the event of a crash. Yet a 2024 survey by the retailer found nearly a quarter (22%) of parents are breaking the law by having their infant forward-facing.

Some parents switch to forward-facing once their children’s legs become longer or when they become toddlers. But experts want to challenge this view.

They stress that in a frontal collision, rear-facing seats offer enhanced protection for a child’s head, neck and spine by distributing crash forces across the back of the child car seat.

The NHS-run Bedfordshire Luton Children’s Health Service recommends for children to use a rear-facing seat until they’re four years old as they have “less developed skeletons”.

Dr Maria Klingegård, traffic safety researcher at Folksam, said: “Children are not just small adults. They need extra support. A rear-facing child restraint system provides robust protection that is forgiving for misuse, offers synchronised support for the head and torso, and protects the neck.”

She highlighted how Sweden has “among the lowest fatality rates for small children in cars”, which she claimed is “largely because most parents use rear-facing restraints for older children up to four or five years of age, or longer”.

Data suggests around 22% of UK children aged two to four travel rear-facing, compared with 83% in Sweden.

Dr Neale Kinnear, a leading UK behavioural scientist, road safety expert and father-of-two, said: “Many families in the UK remain unaware of the safety benefits or assume that turning children forward-facing earlier is the norm internationally.

“What matters is making sure parents have access to clear, consistent and evidence-based information so they can make informed choices.

“Rear-facing travel is one practical and evidence-informed step that can help better protect children.”