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As the parent of a baby, you should know what to do if your baby needs immediate medical help. If baby can’t breathe or is choking (and coughing or your own blockage dislodging techniques aren’t working) or if baby can’t be awaken, you may need to perform CPR.
The first step in baby CPR is, naturally, to call 911. If you are alone and help is minutes away, take the following steps (while calling 911 – put it on speaker):
If baby cannot be awaken, put baby face up on a hard surface and tilt the head back to open the airway. Check for respiration. If baby isn’t breathing, cover the mouth and nose with your own mouth – with baby’s head still tilted back – and carefully blow two short breathes into baby.
If baby still isn’t breathing, start chest compressions. Put two fingers on the sternum between the nipples. Avoid the bottom of the sternum as there is a tiny bone there on babies that you could possibly break off. With two fingers, between the nipples, push down about an inch – 30 times, twice per second. Repeat breathing and compressions (two breathes / 30 compressions) until baby begins breathing unaided or paramedics arrive.
Parents, please keep in mind, an article on the Internet is not CPR training! CPR should ideally be done by someone trained to do it. Contact a hospital that may offer CPR classes or maybe a nursery or daycare that require this sort of training of their employees. Hopefully, you’ll never need to use any of these skills, but should you need them, you’ll be glad you took the time to learn.
