Keep Your Babies Safe

St Johns Ambulance in the UK has produced a video that every parent should watch.  I can say this with great authority as our neighbour saved the life of my daughter who was one week old at the time because I had no idea what to do.

The video shows what you should do should you baby ever stop breathing.  It is incredibly normal for babies to stop breathing and most of the time, there isn't a need to worry too much as their caveman instinct kicks in and they restart themselves after a millisecond.  Sadly, DD2 didn't.  Within 10 hours from when we were discharged from hospital we found this out to our cost.  At 24 hours we were back in hospital again where we would stay for another 5 days.  

It all started when we had friends over to meet DD2.  Ian left the room to get the speaker dock for music when DD1 stopped breathing for the first time.  I grabbed her and had no idea what to do and just screamed for Ian.  Luckily, because he is still a coach with Arsenal football club's soccer school in Dubai, they had made sure he had attended a first aid course.  He has had to use this knowledge before, but never on a five-day-old baby...

DD2 and myself

Ian plucked her from my hands, flipped her over onto her belly and firmly hit her back.  Her breathing kicked in instantly and you wouldn't have guessed that anything had happened to her - Unless you looked at us.  Then you could easily tell as I was shaking desperately trying not to cry, Ian was full of adrenaline, his eyes wide like saucers and my mother and our friends were just stood there mutely staring in shock.

That night, as you can probably imagine, neither Ian nor myself slept at all.  We spent the whole night listening to her breathing.  Ian was berating himself for not having had follow up training for what to do with an infant.  I was berating myself for plainly not having a clue about what to do.  All night long (and for weeks after), whenever she fell into a deep sleep and I couldn't hear or see her breath, I would nudge her to check she was still alive.  Ian went to work that following morning looking like a zombie, but at least I knew what to do should anything happened right..?  How wrong could I have been?

A couple of hours after Ian left, my mother (who had been watching the girls whilst I had a bath), started screaming and ran into the bathroom, "She's not breathing!"

This time was different.  DD2 was trying to breathe and couldn't.  She was awake, struggling for breath, looking scared.  I did exactly what Ian did.  I flipped her onto her back and started to hit her back to get her to breathe.  I then told mum to phone an ambulance and run out into the road and scream for help.

This time, this action made no difference.  DD2 had gone from her pale translucent skin tone to turning bright red and was quickly turning purple.  It felt like minutes had passed since she had last breathed.  When her lips began to turn blue, the calm collected feeling me left and a muted panic set in. I turned her upside down holding her legs, body and head, along my arm and in my hand, firmly hitting her back.  She began to choke, and started producing amniotic fluid from her mouth and nose that I kept pulling out.  It is bizarre, but when you go through an experience like this, everything slows down.  You have more time to think about your actions and the consequences - Like being aware of not hitting her too hard and ensuring her head is supported through everything because you don't want to damage her brain.  It is a weird calm that I can only describe is like a fire blanket to the panic, suppressing your panic to enable you act clearly so that only the best outcome is obtainable.  I even had time to weigh up whether or not to shake her (I didn't). It felt like she hadn't breathed for about 10 minutes by this point - I later found out that this was unlikely as by 10 minutes she would have been brain dead - which she wasn't.  Realistically it was about 4 minutes...

My mother at this point, was screaming out in the road, running around in bare feet over gravel and only her dressing gown.  She ran to next door where our neighbour was home. Our fabulous neighbour ran into the bedroom, plucked her out of my hand and began CPR.  the poor bloke had learnt CPR literally just two weeks before.  Like everyone who learns CPR, you never expect to have to use it.  You never ever expect to have to use it on a baby who is under a week old!  He got her breathing again just before the ambulance arrived to take us to hospital.

Maybe, had I have seen this before; I would have been able to have acted quicker.

This is a must see for all parents.  As St John's Ambulance say, "Remember the song, in case things go wrong."

St John's Ambulance CPR Nursery Rhyme