Parents in Lincolnshire are urged to learn baby CPR
Only 15% of parents would know what to do if their child went into cardiac arrest
Only 15% of parents in Lincolnshire would know what to do if their baby stopped breathing.
That's according to new figures released by the Resuscitation Council UK.
For parents, the thought of their child dying before them is enough to make them feel sick with worry. But could many dads and mums perform CPR on their child if the worst should happen?
- Only 15% of parents said they would know what to do if their child went into cardiac arrest
- 62% of parents say not knowing what to do in a life-threatening emergency is their “biggest worry”
- 89% of parents said they would welcome more help and information on this crucial lifesaving skill
To tackle this lack of confidence and education, the Resuscitation Council UK are teaching the public, particularly anyone who has the responsibility of caring for children, how to do baby/child CPR.
It’s a simple skill that takes minutes to learn and could end up saving a life. Increasing the public’s confidence using these skills is paramount and performing CPR on a baby or infant in cardiac arrest cannot make things worse - as they are considered clinical dead.
The key difference is in the CPR technique used for adults and babies/children, so the Resuscitation Council is offering a FREE Baby and Child CPR book which gives instructions with diagrams on how to perform baby / child CPR. The FREE Baby CPR book can be downloaded via their website or a physical copy can be sent directly, also free of charge.
The new book called Aaron’s Heart, is launching to ensure parents and caregivers have the confidence to perform lifesaving CPR on a child or baby in an emergency.
Cutis Dorbon works as a Clinical Education Manager for LIVES - a charity of medical volunteers.
He tells us why it's important for parents to know...
"The more people are aware of resuscitation, the better the outcomes can be hopefully. These emergencies are thankfully very rare but they do happen unfortunately... in my career I've attended plenty of paediatric cardiac arrests.
"If the baby is in cardiac arrest, they aren't breathing, so we need to do that for them, and so we need to perform that CPR or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, so the compressions on the chest and also providing ventilation as part of like a basic life support."
He added that a child can sometimes encounter cardiac arrest from very simple things...
"The most cardiac arrests that happen in paediatric is due to hyperoxia, or low oxygen levels. Even by a foreign body obstruction, so perhaps like a choking episode that's then lead to them having a lack of oxygen which is leading them into a cardiac arrest."
It comes as new research has found only 15% of parents are confident they’d know what to do if their child went into cardiac arrest, and that’s despite 62% of parents admitting their biggest worry is not knowing what to do if their child was in a life-threatening emergency and unresponsive, according to Resuscitation Council UK.
As a result, 89% of parents would welcome more help and information on this crucial lifesaving skill.
Resuscitation Council UK have created this free book, so that as many parents and caregivers as possible have the confidence to know what to do in an emergency and help save a child’s life. The book not only teaches you how to react in the first few critical moments of a cardiac arrest in a baby or child, but also deals with information to reduce the risks of accidents, injuries, and trauma in children, which are the most common cause of a cardiac arrest.
In the UK around 73,000 people suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest each year, that’s around 200 people every single day. Sadly, the survival rate is less than 1 in 10. More than 1,000 additional lives could be saved each year in England if more members of the public were trained in CPR.