How can online CPR certification help prevent accidental drowning?

Are you thinking about taking your baby for a swim? Does uploading adorable pool pictures of your toddler make you smile? If yes, head to the beach or pool and let your little ones enjoy the water. It is one of the most relaxing and natural ways to release stress from the body. But they do not know how to swim in the water. While heading to the pool is fun, you must have proper assistance. It is advisable to take infants and toddlers to swimming classes first. It helps them learn breathing and strokes. However, every parent must know Infant CPR to help their downing child. This article looks into the value of a CPR certification for children. You will also learn of the various ways to protect your child from drowning.

How to prevent a drowning accident with children?

While playing with water is one of the most loved activities of a child, it could prove fatal if left unsupervised—children love splashing around in a pool or the beach. Even infants do not fear water if introduced to it gradually. However, water is a force to reckon with, and humans cannot breathe under it. The lungs in the human body function by taking in air from the environment. If water goes into it, the heart stops working due to lack of oxygen, causing cardiac arrest. To avoid such a mishap, keep the below citations in mind.

1. You must never leave your child alone by a water body. A backyard bathtub could prove fatal if a child falls head first. It would help if you never kept buckets of water in the toilet as children may slip and fall into them. When you plan a pool day, stay agile with the children to help them in case of an accident.
2. Remove toys from the pool you have in your house. Most people think having lots of toys in a pool will keep the children entertained. But toys pose a choking and drowning hazard to your child. It would help if you used colorful life jackets and tubes in place of loose ducks and toys in the pool.
3. Drowning happens for many reasons, like muscle cramps, hitting your head, or not breathing correctly. Children sometimes jump over each other in the pool, causing unforeseen accidents. Someone should always be in charge of supervising the children to behave in a pool. Keep someone in charge if you need to be at some other place when your child goes swimming.
4. If you have children younger than 3, you must stay with them in the pool. For older children, it would help to conduct mock water safety drills. Through this exercise, you can teach them about water safety and the best way to react if someone drowns.
5. Parents and caretakers must take infant CPR and child CPR courses. These talk about the emergency that can stabilize your baby till the emergency response team arrives on site.

What are the teachings of Child CPR?

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a technique that helps maintain blood circulation in the human body after cardiac arrest. The result is the same in every situation. The medical fraternity lays out three types of CPR; Infant CPR and child and adult CPR. By learning child CPR, you will gain knowledge on the following topics.

1. The Technique: Through Child CPR classes, you learn the right intensity of chest compressions required for a baby. The course also teaches you to use just one palm for the compressions as babies have delicate ribs. The breathing technique also changes slightly to accommodate their tender lungs.
2. Confidence: Feeling stiff when a loved one experiences pain is usual. Most parents panic or freeze seeing their children in accidents. But CPR courses teach you to stay calm and agile. Their certification gives you the confidence to approach the baby and help them. Your swift action is the key to saving a child’s life.
3. Peace Of Mind: You cannot keep your children cooped up in the house for fear of an accident. They need to run free and explore the world. Parents can only prepare for the worst and have all emergency numbers stored in their mobile devices.
4. Biology: When you take a course related to CPR, it teaches you the working of the human body. To effectively revive a child, you must learn how the lungs and heart connect.

Drowning and CPR?

Having difficulty breathing while submerged in water is drowning. By this definition, people can drown in anything containing enough water to dip their noses and mouth. When someone drowns, the person essentially inhales water. It goes into the lungs and inflames the lung sacs. These inflamed parts prevent the proper exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the lungs, resulting in respiratory distress. What follows is a downward spiral of body activities. The person would experience a faster heartbeat followed by pain and discomfort from a cardiac arrest. They would eventually collapse due to a failed heart. CPR helps this person in the following ways.

1. By immediately starting CPR, you ensure the blood circulation stays intact in the body. It gives the required oxygen to the various organs and prevents brain death.
2. The breaths from the lay responder act as oxygen and help the body breathe.
3. Once the blood flow starts and the heart gets to work, the body tries to cough out water from the lungs. It then looks for air and continues breathing the usual way.
4. Anyone with a drowning incident must go to the hospital immediately for a lung infection. The swollen sacs often stay filled with water as CPR only temporarily prevents brain damage.

Conclusion

While the human body is relatively robust, it does have its pain points. It cannot breathe underwater, and hence drowning proves fatal. To safeguard your family members from it, you must enroll them in swimming classes. It helps to learn survival skills and expands lung capacity. Swimming is a great exercise to keep yourself fit as well. However, every parent must take CPR courses to stay prepared. The American HealthCare Academy offers certification for all types of CPR. For more details, log onto their website and look at their child and infant CPR courses.