8 Tips You Should Know About Performing CPR on Infants

By | May 12, 2012 | Medical Business

Emergencies arrive without any prior warning and it is best to be prepared for any such life threatening situations. For instance, when you have young kids and infants around at home, the first thing you must do is make the home safe for kids. But accidents do happen sometimes, things like head injury during a bad fall, drowning, choking, suffocation, sudden infant death syndrome or many such situations occur.

Learning how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation can be very handy and useful during an emergency situation. If you have small babies or infants at home you should learn the basic of the CPR procedure for children and infants. It is hard to check the pulse of infants as their organs are so small, so you will find it difficult to check the pulse than when compared to children and adults. It is the brachial artery located at the insides of the upper arm of the infant.

8 Tips You Should Know About Performing CPR on Infant

– During an emergency situation, when something happens to the infant, keep your presence of mind and act quickly. You can provide CPR to infants under a year old. You should do it continuously until the breathing is restored or as long as it takes.

– You should try to wake the infant by gently tapping or rubbing the soles of the feet as babies respond well to this touch. For infants above 2 months, you should tap their chest or shoulders. You can call out the babies name loudly. Be gentle and do not be aggressive.

– If the infant does not wake up, call for medical help and if you are alone and the baby is not breathing, begin chest compressions for about 2 minutes before you call for medical help under the new guidelines.

– Put your two fingers on the breastbone directly between the nipples on the chest. Push deeply straight down the chest for about 1 1/2 inches deep compression and let the chest rise all the way up. Continue doing this at a rapid rate of 30 compressions twice per second.

– If you know rescue breathing then give rescue breaths after 30 compressions to the chest and if you are not trained or sure then keep pressing the chest.

– After pushing the chest 30 times, pinch the nose and cover the mouth with your mouth and blow gently until you see the chest rise. Then let the air pass and you can see the chest going down, give mouth to mouth breathing. If the air is not passing through then position the infant’s head a little tilted, and chin up, and try again.

– If you find that the rescue breathing does not work, go back to giving chest compressions at a faster rate for 30 compressions in about 18 seconds and then again try rescue breaths.

– Do not stop the chest compressions until medical help arrives or till the baby wakes up. You should immediately call for emergency medical help even if the infant wakes up after the CPR.

With a little training, knowledge and practice you can also learn CPR from the professionals, hospitals and certified authorities and can be confident of facing any such emergency situation. Above all, it is always better to prevent accidents than cure them, hence make your home and surroundings infant safe and keep an eye at all times on your precious little ones.

Author Bio: For more information please visit our Online CPR Courses website.

Category: Medical Business
Keywords: CPR in emergencies,CPR training,medical mission,knowledge of CPR,Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation