Pediatric Cardiac Arrest

In our absolute worst-case scenarios, our pediatric patient is found or progresses into cardiac arrest. As an effective team leader, you must recognize the condition and act quickly and efficiently to increase the chances of survival. The changes with children relate to their size and cause of cardiac arrest:

  1. Children (1 month – puberty) are more likely to experience cardiac arrest for respiratory reasons and therefore we will breathe at quicker intervals than adults.
    1. This is especially true with neonates (birth-30 days)
      1. Compression / Ventilation ratio of 3:1
  2. Decrease the depth of compressions to 1/3 of the depth of the chest and use 1 hand instead of 2.
  3. When performing alone, for children 1mo – puberty, we keep the 30:2 compression/ventilation ratio.
    1. When another rescuer arrives, we move to 15:2 compression/ventilation ratio.
      Photo of gloved EMT performing infant chest compressions using the encircling thumb technique.
      Images by Holly Edwins, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Two gloved EMTs performing 2 person infant CPR on infant manikin.
Images by Holly Edwins, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Two gloved EMTs performing 2 person infant CPR on infant manikin.
Images by Holly Edwins, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Flowcharts are a helpful tool to visualize the concepts and decision making necessary within this set of skills. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions we are unable to provide them here.

The authors recommend you or your instructor find an up-to-date version of this flowchart from the American Heart Association. A simple web search on pediatric cardiac arrest algorithm AHA should do the trick. If you are viewing the online version of this lab manual, this link will take you to the AHA CPR algorithms.

Pediatric Cardiac Arrest Skill Verification Table

Ped Cardiac Arrest

1 – Member

2 – Lead

3 – Lead (instructor)

Initials

The original copy of this book resides at openoregon.pressbooks.pub/emslabmanual. If you are reading this work at an alternate web address, it may contain content that has not been vetted by the original authors and physician reviewers.

 

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Oregon EMS Psychomotor Skills Lab Manual Copyright © 2023 by Chris Hamper, BS, NRP; Carmen Curtz, Paramedic, BS; Holly A. Edwins, Paramedic, B.S.; and Jamie Kennel, PhD, MAS, NRP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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