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American Morning

Red Cross Official Discusses Child Summer CPR

Aired July 04, 2002 - 09:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Summertime is also, unfortunately, prime time for accidents involving young children. As we've seen too often, summer fun can turn fatal in seconds, especially at a swimming pool. It can also at picnics.

Nancy Edmunds (ph) with the American Red Cross is here to show what to do if there is a breathing or a choking emergency.

Welcome. Glad to have you with us today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

ZAHN: So Leon and I were talking today. I mean, lots of folks, they're going to be lucky enough to be outside, enjoying picnics with their families. Sometimes we let our guards down. But what should a parent do if they happen to be outside and they see their child choking. What's the first thing they need to think about?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, one of the first things is to always use prevention, if you can. Supervise your child on a regular basis, and watch them, especially when they are eating. And keep an eye on them, because if something does happen, you have to be able to react.

And one of the first things that you do is what we call a system called check, call, care. First of all, you check out the scene, to see what the situation. Make a quick assessment. Then you are going to check the child to see if they -- especially if they're choking if they have good air exchange, yes or no. OK? If they don't have good air exchange, then you may have to go into a maneuver to help save the child from a breathing emergency.

ZAHN: And you can actually walk through one of those maneuvers with us this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

ZAHN: You want to start with reviving an infant.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually, I'd rather start with a child if you don't mind -- OK?

ZAHN: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the key things about child choking -- and again, when we talk about children, we're talking about ages 1 to 8. Usually when you talk about 9 and up, you're referring to adults in CPR. And that's an important point to remember.

But in the case of a child, the choking skills for a conscious victim are going to be the same as you would be with an adult, with some slight modifications.

The key maneuver's what we call the abdominal thrust. To find the correct portion of the abdominal thrust is that you find the navel, make a flat fist, put your hand right above the navel, and you are going to do sharp, upward, inward thrusts. In other words, to produce an artificial cough.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You push it up and in under the diaphragm. You, hopefully, if see that and continually do that, the object will come out. And I've seen it working very effective.

ZAHN: And what position does the child have to be in to make that work?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Generally, standing. This is for a conscious standing child. And as an adult, you would need to kneel down, get behind the child (UNINTELLIGIBLE) adjust your height.

ZAHN: So is that a variation on the Heimlich?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is. Basically, it is the Heimlich, but you're adjusting yourself to a child as far as the height is concerned.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: If the child is laying down, if the child is choking and he happens to be, or she happens to be, lying on the ground, you can't do that while they're there. Is there any danger in moving them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Generally, there is another technique that we use for somebody who is lying down, but that is a little more complicated. You would have to go take the class to really get that answered and practice that.

ZAHN: Why don't you quickly show us what you would do with an infant, because this is technique is very, very different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, because an infant, we have a different technique that we have to use. And it's what we call a series of back blows and chest thrusts. We cannot do an abdominal thrust, because that is not good or effective on this age group. So what you want to do, basically, is support the infant with your thumb and forefinger supporting the head. OK?

And what you also want to do is make sure the infant's head is lower than the feet and position them for back blows. So you can either get on your hands -- down this way.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Continue bending down -- there you go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But anyway, you can hit between the shoulder blades, and you make five effective blows with the heel of your hand: one, two, three, four, five.

HARRIS: About that hard?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. You want to use enough force to be effective. Not harmful, but effective. So a lot of people are afraid to really use force on an infant.

HARRIS: So it's kind of hard -- especially you're afraid of hurting your own child, so how do you gauge what's an effective strength, I guess?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you have to do it enough to vision yourself pushing the object out. So you have to use a little bit of force because you are here to save a life. So you've got to be a little more forceful than you might want to think.

After you do the five back blows, you continue on by sandwiching the infant between your forearms, again supporting the arm, head lower than the feet, and doing what we call chest thrusts. Usually, there's an imaginary nipple line between the nipples. You take your middle finger, put it between the nipples. And you want to make sure that you hold it along your forearm. I know you're holding it like this, but you want to hold it straight along your forearms. Support it like that. And then you put the two fingers down.

ZAHN: I'm going to switch hands here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Raise the ring finger. Again, support the head also. And just go, one, two, three, four, and five. And then repeat that process by going back over it: one, two, three, four, five. And go back. And do this.

And again, this is on a conscious child -- or a conscious infant. If the infant is unconscious when you come upon them, it's a whole different technique. And you really need to take a class for that.

ZAHN: I went to this class many, many years ago. And it's very frightening when you take it. And you really need to practice this, so we should recommend that people really go in and take courses. This would be good in an emergency situation, but we really should all know more about this.

Go through the foods that parents really should be very careful with.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In general, parents need to be careful of foods that can tend to block the airways, such as grapes, popcorn, hot dogs that aren't properly cut.

ZAHN: Some pediatricians won't even allow hot dogs. (CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: I know ours didn't -- yes.

ZAHN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

And anything else that can block the airway. Generally, peanuts are not good either. So there are a lot of different things. And again, talk to your pediatrician, which is a good idea.

ZAHN: Well, thanks for dropping by. Hopefully, this will be of great help to some parents. What we are really doing is keeping our fingers crossed that no one will ever have to deal with it.

Nancy Edmunds (ph), thanks for your time.

Take the course.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes -- very much.

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