Baby First Aid

In all the excitement of a new baby and all the cuteness associated, it’s often easy to forget the very real responsibilities that come with the fact that this little human being is going to rely on you 100% to, well stay alive! WOW, now, that’s a responsibility.

Everyone jokes (but really actually means it!) about the fact that there are sleepless nights, no time for yourself, and a lifetime commitment coming up, and I guess that’s what you know you were signing up for! What about if something goes wrong though? Now it’s a big IF, but I personally wouldn’t have a clue what to do in an emergency situation with the baby, and that scares the life out of me!

I decided to look into First Aid courses for infants and toddlers, because even though you can never know what is going to happen, I wanted to have a little bit of security in the fact that I would be able to do to something – anything – that might help in an emergency, rather than just freeze and have to wait for someone else to do something. It’s better to be prepared than not – to me, it’s just not worth the risk.

I didn’t have to look much further than a basics first aid course at the Essential Baby and Toddler Show so I booked myself and Jay in. It was run by Child Revive First Aid, and was a 90 minute course conducted by an experienced paediatric nurse.

It was a full class, primarily of first-time parents, so was good to know that there were other people in the same boat as us, with no real prior knowledge of first aid.

The lady who took our class was fantastic. She was very knowledgeable, and had 4 children of her own, which was reassuring in that she also had first-hand experience of the things that can happen when caring for a small child. She gave us examples of some of the emergency situations she had experienced as a mother and was also very lively, which made the class fun and more memorable in what we were learning.

During the 90 minutes, we covered CPR Training, Choking, Seizures, and Fever. We had our own ‘baby’ to practice on at the course, as did each couple. This was great, as it meant practical training, rather than someone simply going through the theory. Our teacher had a very visual teaching style, so though you may not remember the long theory, she gave examples and ways to remember things easily, especially in an emergency situation when you wouldn’t have the time to pull out your book to refresh.

Myself and Jay both came away feeling that bit happier that if something were to happen to our baby, or anyone else for that matter, we would have a starting point, to be able to try and help, at least until an ambulance, or other medical professional arrived. Being able to just do something could make all the difference, between extending a life or losing it. If you are able to just continue oxygen flow and breathing, it is going to make all the difference, as when this stops, there is very little even the professionals can do.

Registering on this course was initially just in case of emergency with our little poppet, but it has really made me think. It has opened my eyes to the fact that in all these years, if something had have happened in the way of a medical emergency in front of me, I wouldn’t have known what to do. Not that I’m saying I now know what to do in ALL emergency cases, but I do feel a bit better that I may know where to start if the need arose. I am now considering registering on a full course to get a bit more detail to follow what we came away with from this course.

First aid, especially for children is so important. I know that all registered carers for babies and children would have to have first aid training, but what about family members who are caring for your child? Would they have the basic knowledge to carry out required first aid if required? It is definitely something to consider, to encourage them to get to know the basics – as I have said before, it would make all the difference to be able to just do something, anything - it really could mean the difference between life or death...