The Importance of Paediatric First Aid!

Paediatric first aid isn’t just a legal requirement for those working as Childminders, I feel it is a necessity for practitioners and parents alike.  This is something that I feel very passionate about.

The following information may be distressing to some but I feel that our story needs to be shared, to emphasise how important First Aid is!

On the 6th May 2017, our little man (Jack) who was 18 months presented us with vomiting just after lunchtime.  He was sick in the car, which he has done in the past so we put it down to travel sickness.  We abandoned all of our plans and took him home.  Jack seemed fine; he was eating, playing, drinking, chasing his sister but had a bit of a temperature (just over 37).  He had dinner, his milk and went to bed about 7:00.  Just before 9pm he cried out and Matt went to settle him.  Nothing unusual-at that point in our lives I was constantly going up and down to settle him back down or find the missing dummy which had been lobbed across the room.

10 minutes later he screamed the most painful scream, to which I legged it up the stairs to be confronted with a very very hot little man.  I shouted to Matt to bring the Calpol and scooped him up.  He was as red as a beetroot and burning.  The next thing I know he starts fitting and stiffens up.  His whole right side was fitting whilst the left remained stiff.  It was the most horrendous night of my life!

I ran down the stairs carrying my fitting little boy, which never seemed to be ending.  I instantly rang 999 and explained to the operator what was happening.  As I was explaining his symptoms, he stopped breathing, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, he turned blue and went limp.  I began to administer mouth to mouth.  By this point he was on the floor and I gave him 5 rescue breaths.  As I went to give him the first chest compression, his colour started to return and he started to breath very shallow breaths.  I rolled him into the recovery position and tried my hardest to reassure not only him but myself.  It all happened so so quickly.

The operator was amazing and talked me through everything.  My neighbours were fantastic with helping Matt to arrange the bits for the hospital and dropped everything to help (the benefits to living in a close knit community!). It took the ambulance only 9 minutes from dialing for them to arrive, by which time Jack was repeating “Mumma” over and over and was very sleepy.  He had a fever of 38.9 and we were whisked off to The Royal Surrey Hospital.

Jack had had a Febrile Seizure or Febrile Convulsion.  NHS Choices state that “the cause of febrile seizures is unknown, although they’re linked to the start of a fever, a high temperature of 38C (100.4F) or above”.  He was monitored overnight and dosed up with Calpol and Ibuprofen to control the fever.

Now, I had literally completed my Paediatric First Aid course with St John Ambulance a couple of weeks previously.  I found myself thinking, during the demonstrations and practice sessions,  that I will never need this.  Surely the odds of one of the 10 practitioners on the course needing to administer CPR would have been really low.  How naive was I?!?!?

I can not thank St John Ambulance enough for the information they provided on the course.  I had done First Aid courses whilst teaching, but its hard to know if I would have remembered what to do had it not been so fresh in my mind!

Therefore I feel that, as a parent, Paediatric First Aid should be one of the first things we do.  Why can it not be made available to expectant mothers during pregnancy????  We focus on how we get the baby out but no one mentions how we keep that baby/child alive, God forbid anything should happen.  It just so happens in our case it did.

We were very lucky.  Febrile Convulsions are said to happen in 2-5% of the population ( a lot more common than I had ever imagined).  The Doctor at Guildford said they see at least 5 cases every week in just that hospital.  We were unaware of how common they were and I feel we should have been more informed and prepared.  GOSH state that “around one third of children will go one to develop another febrile convulsion during their childhood and some children may have several febrile convulsions. While they are worrying for parents it is important to remember that they do not cause any lasting effects in most cases. Only a small number of children go on to develop epilepsy – this is more likely if the child has a ‘complex’ convulsion.”  For Jack, his was classed as a ‘simple’ convulsion, however we are now on tenterhooks every time he feels slightly warm!!!!! I swear this boy wants to send me grey by the age of 35!  Jack has had a couple of fevers since and has been very twitchy, but (touch wood) nothing has happened as yet!  He is back to his crazy, destructive self!

The link below is from the St John Ambulance and explains what to do in the event a child is non responsive.  It has a YouTube video, clearly outlining the process.

CPR on an unresponsive infant/child

I didn’t write this to scare anyone.  It is merely there to aid and support parents.  If I had been offered a First Aid course whilst I was pregnant I would have jumped at the chance.

St John Ambulance also offer a free Guide- First Aid Guide for Parents

If you’re a parent, grandparent, a carer or if you work with children, learning first aid will give you confidence to save a life when it really counts.  

With our first aid advice for parents, we cover a whole range of different conditions and techniques – from knowing how to put a child or infant in the recovery position if they are unresponsive but breathing, to giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if they’re not.

This section covers first aid advice for many different conditions, from dealing with a choking child or baby, to recognising the signs of meningitis and much more.

There are many places that offer courses for parents and I would urge parents (after our experience) to invest in one!  Courses can be found through The Red Cross, NCT groups or at your local Children’s Center.

Many thank-ings for reading guys!