Welcome to the list and to emergency medicine.
As far as the First Aid Manual is concerned, and for me as a first aider
that is my sole guideline, chest thrusts are used on a choking baby aged up
to 1 year. For a child of the same age range, CPR is performed if the pulse
rate has dropped below 60 beats per minute with the fingers in the same
position as above.
For a choking conscious child aged 1 to (approximately) 7 then abdominal
thrusts are used after five unsuccessful back slaps. For an unconscious
child aged 1 to 7, then it is five back slaps followed by a single handed
abdominal thrust with the heel of the hand midway between the navel and the
breastbone.
Children aged 8 and over are treated as adults.
The guiding light though has to be the relative size of the child, for
example a small 9 year old would be better treated as a seven year old and a
large seven year old may be better treated as an eight year old. To some
extent it is down to your own judgement.
The differences are due to the size of the casualty in relation to the size
of the first aider/rescuer/parent and the delicacy of the casualty's body.
If an adult did the same amount of rescue breathing into a baby as they do
for an adult then the baby's lungs would probably rupture.
I apologise for any repeated information and for the less technical
observations.
John Collis,
Principal Software Engineer and FAW,
Racal Defence Electronics Limited,
Scudamore Road,
Leicester,
Leics
Tel: 0116 2594253
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
corporate website : www.rdel.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Erika Kovannin
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 16:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Infants - abdominal thrusts
New to the list, fairly new to emergency medicine...
The question pertains to finger positioning for
abdominal thrusts on an infant. According to the
reference books, finger placement is in precisely the
same position as for external chest compressions for
CPR. It has been mentioned that to perform CPR on an
adult whilst the heart is beating could in fact put
the heart in arrest. Does this differ in infants? Why
the same finger positioning? Perhaps someone can help
me with this one?
Eva
(BCAS)
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