CHILD & BABY RESUSCITATION
INTRODUCTION
Research shows that people generally resist resuscitating a child or baby
for fear of doing them more harm. I think it needs to be said that if you
ever come across a child or baby who is not breathing and you do nothing
whilst awaiting for professional help, the chances are that the child will
have brain damage or die.
Because of this the guidelines make it quite clear that if you have only been trained in ADULT resuscitation (CPR) then apply those skills rather than do nothing. On the other hand, if you are a 'healthcare professional with a duty to respond to paediatric emergencies', there are further guidelines.
A point to remember about children under puberty and infants is that the likely cause of them not breathing is something other than a heart problem. For this reason you could start your CPR sequence with five rescue breaths, and then move on to the 30 chest compressions, and continue as normal, i.e 30 compressions: 2 inflations.
Because there is a possibility of the child or baby responding to CPR without a defibrillator you should try CPR for about one minute before leaving them (if you are alone) to call for help.
Obviously the size of the child or baby differs from an adult so the method by which you compress the chest will change. A baby under 12 months for example will only need two fingers, whereas a large child may still need two hands and a small child only one hand. Your aim is to depress the chest by about one-third of its depth, how you do it is up to you to decide.
Finally, a child is defined as such if he/ she has not reached puberty. This judgement is made by the first aider so if in your opinion the child is under the age of puberty, apply the child guidelines.