A Guide to Infant CPR
Taking an Infant CPR class and receiving your certification can be a very valuable like skill. You never know when you may be called upon to provided life saving techniques.
CPR Training
Sufficient oxygen supply to the brain is important as it takes less than eight minutes for permanent damage to occur in case this isn’t adhered to. With advances in technology, adequate blood circulation and oxygen can be quickly restored to the critical organs of the body like the brain. This is brought about by CPR training; the training offers a set of guidelines that combine chest compressions and rescue breathing to help a victim until trained personnel can assume care. Since such cases keep are on the rise, the need for this kind of assistance is also increasingly growing and therefore it’s recommended that individuals attend CPR training classes to learn how to save a life.
CPR has been designed to cater for three different age categories; this includes CPR for the children, infants, and adults in general. Different approaches are essential when performing CPR due to the anatomical differences that occur between these three age differences. From this, people older than the age of eight are considered as adults, those of one year up to the age of eight are the children and an age bracket of below a year is the infants. Each category of CPR training classes can be scheduled to make it easier for those with busy schedules to fit these classes into their lives. In this article, we will review a few of the techniques used to perform infant CPR.
How to perform infant CPR
As we have known, performing CPR in infants is something totally different from what is done for the adults, so, the same techniques of doing all these don’t apply. Here are a few techniques on how to properly perform CPR for the infants.
According to the American Red Cross, in the event of an emergency, begin by shouting and tapping. Shouting loudly will help to try to startle the infant into awareness. You may follow by gently tapping on the infant’s shoulder. In case there is no response from the baby or if the baby is breathing abnormally or not breathing at all, move on to position the baby on his/her back.
On the infant’s chest, gently apply 30 compressions. You should do this by positioning your two fingers in the infant’s chest just right between the nipple line. Make to press down at a depth of around an inch and half the infant’s chest depth. Between each compression, allow recoiling of the chest. Next, follow by opening the baby’s airway. To perform this, you there need you to use the head/chin/lift, tilt method. You should ensure you don’t tilt the head too far back.
In case there is yet no response from the baby, give the baby two gentle breaths. Around the baby’s mouth and nose, make a seal with your mouth and exhale two breaths gently. The time interval between each breath should be around a second long. The baby’s chest should show a rise during each breath. The second breath should follow once the baby’s chest recoils. Follow by performing another chest compressions followed along by two rescue breaths. Repeat this until professional care providers arrive.
These guidelines provided by the American Red Cross can be applied to help save a life in an emergency. There is no substitute to taking Infant CPR classes from CPR Training Source.