Have you ever get caught in a situation where you found your baby choking or not able to breathe properly? Parenting is no easy task to perform especially if you are a new parent and don’t know much about parenting. As parents you don’t realize that CPR is as necessary to know as to feed them the right amount of food for infants! Parents today should not underestimate the value of CPR for infants; you might not know when you can make use of it and save your child’s life.
Being a parent you can’t see your child choking or ever needing to perform CPR on anyone, then on their child. But if performed correctly CPR can save your child’s life. It can restore breathing and circulation until emergency personnel arrives. So what excuse do you have not to get CPR trained especially for your loved ones?
Ever wondered? Why do you need to know how to do CPR? Well, certain injuries can cause a person to stop breathing. When there is no breath, blood cannot circulate which means the brain will be feeding on oxygen. If a person who isn’t attended to as quickly as possible can suffer permanent brain damage or even die in as little as eight minutes. Later you can only regret to lose a child in this manner, especially knowing the fact you could have done something about it, and it can tear a parent apart.
What are some of the reasons why a parent would need to know CPR?
You may not want to think about the possibilities of needing to breathe for your child but it might help you save an infant just in time.
For the best result, CPR should be started as soon as possible if it is needed.
Some are the basic parts for CPR: airway, breathing, and circulation. However, CPR for children should be done in five cycles over two minutes. Make sure the airway is open. It might be a piece of food or another object causing a blockage. Open the airway to enable rescue breathing. When a child is determined to not be breathing, rescue breathing should be started immediately. Lastly, it is essential to re-establish circulation. Give two rescue breaths followed by 30 chest compressions. The cycle will be continued for a total of five cycles. If not effective, then call 911 to get professional help if you haven’t already done so. Continue CPR until medical help arrives. Knowing first aid and CPR is something every parent benefits from. It is not that only these skills can save their child’s life, but it can be used to help others as well. Now that you know why learning CPR is a must?
What You Learn in an Infant CPR Class
Choose the best way to learn infant CPR which is in a class and trained by a certified instructor. It’s recommended to attend a class than to try and learn infant CPR from a book or website; though such materials can help you get familiar with CPR before your class or help you refresh your memory after you undergo training.
What is different in an infant CPR class? How to prevent, recognize, and respond to cardiac and breathing emergencies? After which you’ll learn to perform CPR and possibly how to use an AED. Your instructor will likely use an infant-sized mannequin to demonstrate how to perform CPR, guiding you to ensure that you learn the proper techniques.
An infant CPR is slightly different than CPR for adults. Rather than using the palm of your hand to do chest compressions, you use your fingers. The CPR techniques for infants and older children are also different, so it’s significant to learn both.
There is no doubt that CPR can save the lives of people of all ages if you know how to do it properly. It is much anticipated that this life-saving procedure is a one-size-fits-all rescue plan. And we couldn’t agree more to this! But there’s a different way to approach CPR for every age group.
Before diving deep into the topic we will briefly discuss the importance of CPR and its literal meaning.
What is CPR
CPR stands for “Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation” and is defined as “an emergency procedure that combines chest compressions often with artificial ventilation.” CPR is used to perform for blood flowing through the brain and body, delivering oxygen until emergency services can arrive. Results of CPR can rapidly improve the chances of survival if performed quickly and correctly.
Why CPR is different for children and infants?
You must be wondering how and why CPR for children and infants is different from CPR for adults. It is because a CPR method varies based on the age group of the person in distress. To simplify, adults can handle more pressure than children and infants can. For Adult CPR procedures it involves pushing down on the center of the chest to a depth of 2 to 2.4 inches with two hands. This is way too much pressure for a young child or infant. The ratio of chest compressions to rescue breaths also varies.
So, it is much recommended to take a gentle approach when performing CPR on children and babies but you also keep in mind that it need be done on urgent basis and while keeping your nerves calm.
How to perform CPR on a child?
Be very gentle when it comes to performing CPR on a child, keep that in mind that you are performing CPR on a child. For Child CPR it should be performed on children aged one to older, around 13 or 14 years old. If the child fits into this age group, then you may proceed as follows:
- Firstly check if the child responds to verbal and gentle physical calls to attention. You can do so by tapping on their shoulder and asking them if they are okay or not? If they do not respond, check for their vital signs.
- Look closely to check for signs of breathing and check the pulse. If the child is breathing normally, do not perform CPR. Call 911 instead. If they are not breathing and have no pulse, prepare to perform CPR.
- But before performing CPR, call 911 or have someone else on the scene do so. Do remember that, CPR is only effective for a short period of time. Also, it is very physically demanding and is only used to buy time until emergency services arrive.
- Lay down the child on their back and open the airway by lifting the chin upward slightly to open the throat.
- If you see the child choking and there is an object stuck inside, remove it. If you are not sure about it, do not attempt to do so. This could worsen the situation, causing more damage.
- After wards, give the child 30 chest compressions at 100-120 beats per minute. Place your hand firmly and press it down to 2 inches. The child CPR ratio is 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths.
- You can repeat the process until emergency services take over or until you see visible signs of life. If the child becomes alert or starts breathing, stop performing CPR.
How to perform CPR on an infant?
When it comes to infant CPR you should be extra careful. Although, performing CPR is similar to a child in a lot of ways but there are crucial differences that you must learn to do it properly. You can do all of the same steps as you would with a child, but with a few minor differences mention down below.
- For infant CPR you should only use two fingers of one hand to give chest compressions. The pressure from even one hand is too much for a baby or infant.
- After that press down one third the depth of the chest instead of 2 inches. As pressing down too hard can damage the baby’s vital organs and bones. It will only worsen the situation and causes complications with treatment.
