CPR is a skill every person should know but few actually do. There are major differences between giving CPR to an adult compared to a child. The UK charity St. John Ambulance created a 2-minute cartoon video that aims to teach parents how to perform CPR on an infant (1).
The music video features popular characters such as Jack & Jill and Humpty Dumpty, as well as a catchy tune that should help adults remember the different steps of infant CPR. The first step should always be to call an ambulance with the caveat that you might want to perform one minute of CPR to the baby if you’re alone and then take a break to call an ambulance. You can also read the step on St. John Ambulance’s site here (2).
- If your baby is not responding or breathing normally, call for someone to help. Tell your helper to call 999/112. If you’re on your own, follow the next steps to give CPR for one minute, then take your baby with you to call an ambulance.
- Open their airway and make a seal with your mouth around their mouth and nose. Blow steadily into your baby’s mouth for one second. The chest should rise. When you take your mouth away, the chest should fall. This is one ‘puff’ (rescue breath). Give five ‘puffs’.
- Now give 30 ‘pumps’ (chest compressions). Place two fingers of your lower hand on to the centre of the baby’s chest. Press down by one-third of the depth of the chest then release the pressure, keeping your fingers in contact with the chest. This is one ‘pump’. Give 30 ‘pumps’.
CPR baby step 2 chest thrust - Continue with two more ‘puffs’ and 30 ‘pumps’.
- Continue CPR with two ‘puffs’ to 30 ‘pumps’ until experienced help arrives and can take over from you, your baby starts to become responsive and breathe normally again, or you become too exhausted to carry on.
- If they start breathing normally again, put them in the recovery position. Cradle them in your arms, with their head tilted downwards.
The chief executive of St. John Ambulance, Sue Killen, told in an interview that a survey they had conducted showed that one in four parents don’t know how to perform CPR on their child (3).
“We know that a major barrier to parents learning is that baby CPR frightens them,” she said, “so we’ve removed the fear factor and made it reassuring and as easy as possible to learn.”
This isn’t the first such video the charity has made so far. In 2015, they released another video called “The Chokeables.” In that animation, they showed parents how to help a choking child. That video was watched over 7 million times and is credited with helping save the lives of at least 46 children in the UK.
Given its grave importance, we hope that more and more people help St John Ambulance’s videos spread by sharing them.