CPR Certification

A couple days ago, I completed my CPR certification. As I stated in a previous post, its a component of my final stretch. It's a requirement I need to complete in order to get my credential. I've never done CPR, so the class was interesting to me. It was interesting to me because the teacher was good at engaging all of us.

We had an adult CPR dummy and an infant CPR dummy. So, that was one way in which all of us practiced the CPR technique (i.e. 10 seconds to check for vital signs, 2 one second breaths with brief pauses in between, and 30 compressions). As we practiced, we had to keep pace with a video that was playing.

For the infant CPR dummy, he showed us how to support the entire weight of the baby on one arm. At that point, you can use your middle and ring fingers to do compressions in the center of its chest just below the height of the nipples. He walked around to correct our finger orientation and placement.

For what are called back blows, while the baby's weight is being supported by one arm, put another arm resting vertically along the baby with your hand supporting its jaw, flip it over so that now the baby's back is facing you instead of its chest, have your new supporting arm resting on your thigh, and you can do back blows (i.e. in the center of the back, but just below the shoulder blades) for a baby that is choking. While practicing all of our techniques, the five of us stood in a circle as he assessed us.

The technique that will be a definite take away for me is the self inflicting abdominal thrust. Why? I choke on so much food... I eat too quickly. Again, what was good about how he taught us was that he had us stand in a circle and broke each step down. Put your right thumb on your belly button, move that thumb just above your belly button, grasp your right hand with your left, make a fist, take a lunge forward with your right foot, fully extend your arms out, then forcefully retract your arms back into your stomach.

What I would have liked him to have done though was to have more written down on a poster sheet or the whiteboard. It would've made it that much easier to remember all of the exercises. To be honest though, that's something I need to do more of as well.