Infant & Child CPR

All milestones in your baby’s development are really exciting, but some can be a little scary if you stop to think about it. Your baby is exploring things with his mouth, so you scurry to write the new happening in his baby book. He starts eating finger foods, so you quickly pick up the phone to call your mother. He becomes mobile, so you get excited as to how much fun going to parks will be.

What about when your baby explores something really small with his mouth? What if the finger food gets stuck in his throat? What if he crawls over to the key bowl and takes out a glass pebble? As horrible as it is to think, your baby could choke. Are you ready to help him?

There are, of course, many other scenarios in which your baby could be in trouble. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 110 children under the age of five drown in bathtubs (or similar home items) each year. Infants are notorious for putting electrical wires in their mouths and for playing with exposed electrical outlets. If you found your child unconscious, do you know what to do?

Basic infant and child first aid training and CardioPulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training could help you to save your baby’s life. Several organizations offer classes and all hours of all days of the week. The American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, the National Safety Council, and a host of local organizations are dedicated to keeping hours that allow as many people as possible to take their classes.

The classes typically take about half of a day and will teach you to recognize an emergency, care for a child who is choking, and care for cardiac emergencies. The child and infant classes apply to people ages 12 and younger; the infant-only classes (where offered) apply to people younger than the age of one; the child-only classes (where offered) apply to people between the ages of one and 12.

What is CPR?
CPR is a combination of rescue breathing and chest compressions. If a person stops breathing or circulating blood adequately, CPR can restore circulation of blood, which is full of oxygen, to the brain. Without that oxygen, permanent brain damage or death can occur in less than eight minutes. If you ever do need to perform CPR, using the correct technique will give the victim the best chance of recovery.

Why Infant & Child CPR?
Even if you know adult CPR, you should take a class to learn about the intricacies of caring for an infant or child in an emergency. For instance, when giving CPR to an infant, you do not want to provide a rescue breath with the same force you would when providing such care to an older person. Failure to use a gentler breath can result in damage to he infant’s fragile lungs and possibly even lead to fatal bleeding. Another major difference is that, in an adult emergency, classes advise a caregiver to call 9-1-1 immediately. In the case of a child emergency, classes advise that you give CPR for two minutes before calling 9-1-1 because the problem is typically due to an airway problem and trying to correct that problem takes precedent over calling for professional help.

Immediately providing CPR can double a person’s chance of survival. The National Safety Council estimates that 25 percent of emergency room visits could be avoided if people were trained in basic first aid and CPR. So, get yourself to a class and get certified. In the meantime, should an emergency occur with your child, call 9-1-1 and ask the dispatcher to give you instructions by phone until the ambulance arrives.

Car seat safety

The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration reports that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children in age groups three to six and eight to 14. Make sure your child is protected in every vehicle in which they are a passenger.

Among the factors that contribute to preventable injuries in a vehicle are: 1) car seats installed or used incorrectly; 2) a child being placed in the wrong type of car seat; and 3) moving a child into regular seat belts before the seat belts fit properly.

Car seat installation and use

When installing a car seat there are three important steps:

1) Read the vehicle manual – the vehicle manual will tell you how the seat is intended to be used in that particular make and model.

2) Read the car seat manual – the car seat manual will tell you how the car seat is intended to be installed in a vehicle.

3) Have a certified car seat inspector inspect the installation – the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration estimates that three out of four car seats are installed incorrectly. Find a local car seat inspection station here.

Be sure to:

-Tighten the harness straps so that you can just fit your fingers between the strap and your child. Also be sure the straps are not twisted and are in the correct position. The harness chest clip should line up with your child’s nipples.

-Check to see that the seat belt is still fastened if the car seat is attached with a seat belt. If using LATCH, be sure that the LATCH locks are still in place.

-Not to place an infant seat in the path of an airbag.

Right type of car seat
Infants
Infants should be kept in a rear-facing car seat, as long as possible up to the height or weight limit of the particular seat. While most institutions still state the policy of one year of age and 20 pounds as the mark to turn a child front-facing, these marks are actually the minimums. Research is trending toward recommending that children be kept rear-facing until the age of two.

Toddlers
After a child outgrows his rear-facing seats, they should ride in forward-facing child safety seats until they reach the upper weight or height limit of the particular seat (usually around age 4 and 40 pounds). Note that toddlers should always ride in the back seat of the vehicle.

Young Children
When a child outgrows his forward-facing seat, he should graduate to a booster seat. The child should still ride in the back seat until the seat belts fit the child properly.

Moving a child to a seat belt
A seat belt fits properly when the lap belt lays across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt fits across the chest. In most vehicles, the fit is right when the child is 4’9” tall.

The back seat remains the safest place for a child until the age of 12.

There are so many seats on the market. All seats sold in the United States must meet federal safety standards. The extra money you pay for some seats is for added safety features (as determined by the manufacturer) and comfort features. The most important thing in car seat safety is that you use the seat correctly. For ease of use ratings, click here.

Two final notes. Do not use a car seat that has been involved in a motor vehicle accident. Remember to register your car seat with the manufacturer so that they can notify you of any repairs or recalls.