As promised – a boring but informative post.
First and foremost, babies and toddlers (BT) are made up differently from adults so before you ever touch a BT in distress, read my lesson. Hollywood movies teach us to tilt the unconscious person’s head back and start pumping with both hands and your bodyweight on the victim. Don’t ever do that to a BT. You may end up with Baby Mash. Nasty….
CPR – Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation – used ONLY when someone has lost consciousness and is NOT breathing or when heartbeat/pulse/breath is slowing down. A healthy adult’s pulse is around 60 beats per minute. A healthy baby’s pulse is 120 beats per minute. When someone faints, they are still breathing thus do not need CPR.
When an accident happens or you find a BT slumped over unconscious, first and foremost, check that it is safe to approach and carry the BT into lying down position. Safe to approach means, if the BT looks like he’s been electrocuted, ensure no power is on. If the BT is involved in an accident, ensure no oncoming cars can approach; move dangerous objects away from BT. If oil/hot water is spilled, move BT to safe area. You get the drift. SAFE TO APPROACH.
Next, with 2 fingers, jiggle the BT’s chest lightly and call out their names for a response. Check for breathing and any other signs of life with all your senses. Put your cheek next to his nose to feel his breath. Look at his nostrils if they flair up. Look at his chest if it rises. Try feeling for a pulse on his inner arm at the inner side of the elbow. The pulse of a baby is extremely light so do practise feeling it now when there is no emergency till you become a BT pulse reader pro. The strongest pulse in a BT is felt on the inner thigh joint between the thigh and the groin but in an emergency, it is unlikely you would go there because you would need to remove clothing, diapers etc first, wasting time.
If you cannot feel a pulse or you feel a slow pulse (below 80 and dropping, although in an emergency you probably won’t have the presence of mind to be exact so just make your best guestimate), you need to CALL FOR HELP, then practise ABC – Airways, Breathing, Circulation. Are we OK so far? Remember again – Safe to Approach, Call for Help, ABC.
Get help. Call your husband/wife/mother/neighbour/anyone with some common sense in order for THEM to get the ambulance/hospital because you need to focus your time in saving the BT’s life, not give your address to the hospital. (If you’re in a public place, then just shout for someone to get help and pray they have common sense). For Malaysians, make sure that the nearest hospital’s numbers are programmed into your phone, not 999 or 911 or whatever the emergency number is, if you do not want to risk communication and language problems or worst, deal with snails’ response time. Better still, get the direct line of the emergency department of the hospital to save a transfer from the General Line. Make this number accessible to your emergency gang and for goodness sake, make sure your emergency gang knows your address and directions to your house at the back of their hands. Every second counts here. Brief them in 5 seconds what you think may have happened.
AIRWAYS (A) – You want to gently place two fingers (index and middle fingers) on your BT’s chin and the other hand supporting the top of his head. Shift the chin upwards very, very, very slightly so that the earlobe of the BT is in line horizontally with his shoulder from highest point of shoulder from floor. This is to open the airways of the BT. To check if you are doing this correctly, look for a chest rise NOT a tummy rise, when you breath a tight, surrounding breath into his mouth. You must press your mouth surrounding his mouth or air will escape and not get into his lungs. For newborn babies, your mouth will surround both his mouth and his tiny nose – that’s OK. Just make it tight.
BREATHING (B) – Give the BT TWO rescue breaths i.e. blow twice into his mouth. More often than not, unconsciousness is caused in BTs first and foremost due to failure in the lungs, then the heart, so these two rescue breaths may be all that is needed to revive the BT. After your two rescue breaths, try reviving him again gently with your two fingers and by calling out to him. If still nothing, then that’s when you go on to step C.
CIRCULATION (C) – With a newborn up to one year old plus, place your two fingers again (index and middle) one centimeter below the BT’s nipple line and press five times followed by ONE rescue breath. The amount of pressure to put on the chest is to press down one third of the BT’s body. It may seem harsh but believe me, BT’s are more resilient than you think and don’t worry about breaking any bones as their bodies are still quite spongy and flexible. You need that kind of pressure because you are helping him manually pump his heart. Do the five time pumping and one rescue breath sequence continuously for one minute. Then check his pulse rate again. If there is no sign of improvement, you keep doing this all the way till help arrives. Don’t give up. You can do this for up to 45 minutes plus minus.
If the BT is one year plus up to five years old, use your palm and apply the pressure with the base of your palm near your wrist. Do not lift up and lose contact with body. Keep palm on chest and pump five times followed by one rescue breath. Follow the same sequence above. And don’t forget when you give your rescue breath each time, to put the BT into open airway position or you will be wasting your breaths.
Remember, five pumps to one rescue breath. Five pumps. Rescue breath. Five pumps. Rescue breath. etc……..
The speed in which you do your five pumps is also faster than 1 second per pump since BTs pulse rates are faster.
If possible, go for a course – it is well worth it and you never know when you may save a life.
I hope this has helped. Somewhat.
**************************************************************************Who is Mamapumpkin?
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