Your observations as a parent are critically important.
You know your child very well and therefore can be trusted to identify any abnormality in their current conditions.
Please note, it is NOT normal for a child to breath irregular. If your child has a pause or a gap in their breathing or seems to be blue/blue tinge in the skin complexion, you must act urgently and decisively!
If your child does not breath, immediately stimulate you child by:
- Pick up the child and carefully rub the child’s back - along the spine or even the sternum
- This is usually enough to get your child to breathe again.
What not to do:
- Do not shake your child!
- What to expect after your child starts breathing again:
- At the start, it will be superficial but soon after there will be a return to normal deep breathing. The color of your child will return to normal thereafter.
If your child does not respond to the stimulation:
- Call 112, emergency.
- Call help from your surroundings.
- Make sure your child has free airways, by removing the feeding tube.
- Turn your child on its stomach.
- Lift the torso with one hand so your child’s head is downwards.
- Tap gently but firmly between the shoulder blades, to loosen mycoses from the airway/mouth.
- Clean the mouth of your child with a finger, use a little cloth rapped around it if necessary.
If your child still does not breath - you have to start airway resuscitation:
- Put your child on a firm and steady surface.
- Put a hand on its forehead, pull the chin up and close the mouth with the other hand.
- Take a deep breath and place your wide-open mount around your child’s nose and blow the air in gently until resistance/oppression
- Let go and look at the torso/breast, and check movement.
- Repeat the above.
- After the resuscitation, it is very likely that the child will start breathing again.
- Look for signs of life
If there are still no signs of life you must start heart and lung resuscitation (HLR):
- Place 2 fingers on the lower sternum.
- Do compressions so the sternum moves approximately 1/3 of the chests’ depth with a speed of 100 presses a minute.
- Continue HLR until the child shows signs of life or until the paramedic takes over.