4.17.2007

Infant CPR

Okay, so we had our Infant CPR class last night. It was a simple one hour course up at the hospital, and it was terrifying.

The process, as with adults, is simple enough. Two breathes followed by 30 chest compressions, wash, rinse and repeat. The catch is that a babies lungs are the size of a cherry tomato and paper thin, so if you blow to hard, they pop. Oh, and chest compressions require only two fingertips or you might crush the entire chest cavity. Yeah, easy. I'm 230 and I just moved a piano last night. Am I really gentle enough to apply CPR in necessary? My initial thought is not.

But wait, let us get to choking. If you determin that the child is choking, just flip it over and beat on the back 5 times, then flip and do 5 chest compressions. The foreign object is supposed to just fly right out of them. Right.

So, I am no prepared to monitor this, as yet, unborn child 24/7. Sleep is for the weak.
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1 comment:

E-Rod said...

I thought they were starting to say that breathing isn't recommended anymore for laypeople doing CPR, just compressions. Plus I see that the American Heart Association is always making changes.

You could always download this document and just keep it by the crib for reference.

Then, when the time comes, you can just flip to the appropriate page in the document for reference! It's so easy!

Shah.

April 17, 2007 at 2:38 PM

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