Note: Your progress in watching these videos WILL NOT be tracked. These training videos are the same videos you will experience when you take the full ProCPR program. You may begin the training for free at any time to start officially tracking your progress toward your certificate of completion.
This unconscious infant choking lesson is for situations where you find an infant who is unconscious, and you suspect they became unresponsive due to an airway obstruction.
Ideally, either you or a bystander witnessed the victim choking before they went unconscious. Through further assessment, you find that the infant has a pulse but isn't breathing normally. Any attempts to deliver a rescue breath have failed, most likely due to an obstruction.
In this scenario, you would treat this patient as an unconscious infant choking victim. The method of care will closely resemble performing CPR on an infant, however there are subtle differences to pay attention to.
When performing rescue breaths on an infant who has a pulse but isn't breathing normally, perform one rescue breath every three seconds for two minutes, just as you would for a child.
As always, the first thing you want to do is make sure the scene is safe and that your gloves are on. Make sure you have your rescue mask with a one-way valve handy.
Pro Tip #1: It's important to have a properly sized rescue mask. In other words, one that fits the size of the victim's face. If you have an infant mask, use that. If you don't, there are some tricks to fitting an adult mask onto an infant, such as turning the mask upside down.
Pro Tip #2: Because infants' mouths are small, it's best to use your pinky finger combined with a hooking motion to sweep out obstructions.
Pro Tip #3: For infants/neonates with a pulse rate lower than 60 beats per minute, you are instructed to override with chest compressions in CPR. But if you're only allowing 10 seconds to check a pulse, how do you know the rate per minute? Multiply the 10-second rate by six, and this will give you the number of beats per minute.
Assessing a patient's vital signs is a crucial first step in providing care. Therefore, it's important to know what range is normal when it comes to pulse rates and respirations.
Pulse rate – 60 to 100 beats per minute
Respirations – 12 to 20 breaths per minute
Pulse rate – 80 to 100 beats per minute
Respirations – 15 to 30 breaths per minute
Pulse rate – 100 to 140 beats per minute
Respirations – 25 to 50 breaths per minute
Pulse rate – 120 to 160 beats per minute
Respirations – 40 to 60 breaths per minute
Pro Tip #4: Infants/neonates in distress – not breathing normally – will likely be tachycardic. It's not unusual for them to range between 120-180 beats per minute on the high end, depending on their exact age. It's also not abnormal to feel a fast, slightly thready (or thin) pulse that's becoming weaker.