Child safety and first aid training content

Allow caregivers to avoid making fatal mistakes during the golden 30 seconds when a child has an accident, and to complete the most effective preliminary treatment.

Last month, when I was finishing a charity training in a community in Hangzhou, Grandma Zhang, who had just finished the class, saw her 3-year-old grandson stuck in his throat after eating jelly at the door of the unit building. In the past, she would only grab the child's back and pat her randomly. That day, she followed the action she had just learned, kneeling Holding the child's legs, she placed her hand on the two horizontal fingers above the belly button and quickly thrust upwards. In less than 20 seconds, half of the stuck jelly was flushed out. People around her praised her for her quick reaction. She herself said, "If I hadn't just learned this, I would have been scared to death today."

The current training on the market for emergency treatment mainly covers the most common accidents such as airway foreign body obstruction, burns, trauma, febrile convulsions, and drowning. However, there are indeed differences in the specific operation guidelines of different certification agencies. For example, for airway foreign body obstruction in infants under 1 year old, the American Heart Association's 2020 guidelines clearly require the priority to use a combination of 5 back taps and 5 chest impacts, and it is prohibited to use abdominal impacts to avoid injury to organs.； However, some domestic emergency lecturers with pediatric emergency background will additionally share a modified version of the low abdominal impact technique, provided that the baby is over 8 months old and weighs more than 10 kilograms. Clinical data shows that this technique is more efficient in expelling foreign bodies in obese babies. There is no absolute right or wrong between the two views, but the applicable scenarios are different.

In addition to emergencies that can be fatal immediately, the treatment of injuries caused by children running and jumping is also the focus of the training. Many people used to think that applying iodophor to the broken skin was the standard answer, but now the training will lay out the clinical recommendations of different departments: the dermatology department even recommends that facial wounds be rinsed with normal saline and then disinfected with diluted povidone-iodine to avoid pigmentation caused by iodine residue and affecting the appearance.； The point of view of emergency surgery is to give priority to prevention and control of infection. Pigmentation caused by iodine will be naturally metabolized in up to 3 months. Especially when the wound is contaminated with contaminants such as sand and sand, disinfection and prevention of infection are always the first priority. You can choose based on your child's situation, and there is no need to argue about right or wrong.

To be honest, after doing children's first aid training for 6 years, I have always felt that the content of pre-emptive prevention is 10 times more useful than first aid operations. After all, no matter how much you rescue someone in the event of an accident, there are risks, so now formal training will spend at least one-third of the time talking about risks that you would not even notice at ordinary times. For example, many parents like to put anti-collision strips on the table corners at home, but few people know that children can easily bite off small pieces of low-quality foam anti-collision strips, which can cause foreign body obstruction in the airway. We received 3 such cases last year ； There are also children's hoodies with long drawstrings, which have been completely banned in the European Union. They are afraid that the ropes will catch the amusement equipment and cause suffocation when children play. However, there are also opinions in China that as long as the exposed length of the drawstrings does not exceed 10 centimeters, there is no need to ban them across the board. These contents will be mentioned in the training, and everyone can make adjustments according to their own considerations. Oh, by the way, many parents ask whether they should enroll their children in the same type of training. In fact, the general consensus in the industry is that children under 6 years old do not need to participate in practical training. If their cognitive abilities cannot keep up, they will easily imitate operations and cause accidental injuries. Children over 6 years old can learn some content about identifying risks, dialing 120 correctly, and asking adults for help. It is enough.

Another very important part is to avoid pitfalls. Don’t believe me, when I ask questions at the beginning of every training, 8 out of 10 parents think that children should apply toothpaste and aloe vera gel as soon as possible when their children are burned and scalded, and 2 said to apply sesame oil. None of the first reaction is to rinse with cold water for 15 minutes.； Also, when children have convulsions, many people will stuff chopsticks into their mouths and pry teeth. In fact, these operations will cause secondary injuries. These fatal misunderstandings will be repeatedly used in the training to sound the alarm with real cases, which is more useful than how many operating instructions you memorize.

Of course, different trainings target different groups of people. Those for kindergarten teachers will focus on how to deal with sudden group accidents, those for parents will focus on risk investigation in family situations, and trainings for older children will also include content on self-protection. You don’t have to pursue all the operations. It is enough to first understand the attention points corresponding to the most common high-risk scenarios in your family. When something goes wrong, stay calm and not panic, which is more effective than any fancy operations.